The Queen's Lover (67 page)

Catherine stared. She'd imagined Jehanne as tall and strapping and golden, but this forlorn wisp with the wounded eyes had no more muscle or dash than Catherine her self; and didn't come up further than her shoulder.

"Catherine," the rough little voice muttered wonderingly. "Catherine..."

And then she was back on the ground with a metallic rush, bowing her head, folding her hands as if in prayer, pouring out a rustling, throaty stream of words.

"My lady, my lady," she muttered urgently, "...showing me the way."

Catherine didn't understand. She could see tears on Jehanne's cheeks. Was it just relief that the newcomer wasn't going to attack her? Confused, she said: "A kirtle...a robe." She unrolled them and held them up. "For you."

Jehanne raised her wet cheeks and gazed at Catherine, but not with any of the emotions Catherine had expected. Catherine saw the boy-woman's face was now incomprehensibly transformed: radiant with humble, unquestioning acceptance.

"The ring...the sword...God's will...the time of glory. Now this." Jehanne looked at the garments. Took a deep breath. Tightened her mouth. Crossed herself. "For the time of defeat you're bringing me."

Catherine thought, with failing heart: Oh no--Jehanne's mad after all; or in a dream still. She's taken me for Saint Catherine--her saint. She thinks she's having a vision.

Catherine didn't know exactly what she'd expected of Jehanne, but it had been something inspiring. Not this. Not someone driven insane by fear. There'd been too much madness in Catherine's life. She didn't want to be mistaken for a saint.

"I'm not Saint Catherine," she whispered, trying to keep her voice gentle. "I'm not your saint." She was bitterly disappointed. It was clear now that, whatever she'd hoped for, she wasn't going to get it. Just delusions. Just prayers and rats. "I'm not a saint," she said, louder.

Jehanne took no notice, but carried on crossing herself and mumbling. Catherine closed her eyes for a moment, still holding out the garments, feeling her breath rise and fall inside her, trying to conquer the misery filling her, until, when she opened her eyes and looked down again at the trembling, muttering figure of Jehanne, she found the strength to see her own selfishness for what it was, and let it go, and found nothing left in her heart but a great pity and love for the lost girl kneeling before her.

"Take them," she said softly, stepping forward, raising Jehanne to her feet, putting the clothes in her hands. How frail Jehanne's arms were--like a child's--and how heavy the iron lay over that chafed, scabbed wrist.

But Jehanne just let the clothes she'd accepted hang from her hands. She shook her head, over and over, from side to side. "The wolves have got me," Jehanne said in a monotone, fixing Catherine with those anguished bruises of eyes. "The English wolves. They've got me after all."

"Yes...but you'll be safe if you wear these," Catherine said, softly but firmly. "They can't kill you if you're wearing women's clothing. It's what they promised you. You'll be safe now."

Once Jehanne was in women's clothing, she would no longer be committing heresy. And, if she removed the men's clothes and put the women's clothes on while Catherine was here in the cell with her, she'd have no need to fear exposing herself to the gaze of soldiers, or to rape.

Catherine put her hand on the girl's trembling shoulder and let her arm lie warm on Jehanne's back. Jehanne was a bag of sharp
bones. She was still shaking her head. "They'll devour me," she was muttering. "Tear me limb from limb." But Catherine just made low, soothing noises and stroked those jutting protuberances with gentle, heavy hands until she felt the shaking stop.

"I'm lost," Jehanne whispered. Then she stood so motionless that there was no sound even from the chains; just the disgusting skittering and squeakings all around; the unclean things waiting.

"You're not lost," Catherine replied, almost as quietly, into the silence, hoping it was true. "But you have to submit. Put on the clothes. You'll be safe if you do."

Then, since she didn't seem to have managed to convince Jehanne she wasn't Saint Catherine, she embraced the saintly role she hadn't expected to play, and added with all the conviction she could muster: "It's the will of God. Put on the clothes."

At last there was an answering movement. A chink of metal. The eyes focused on her again, faintly puzzled. Jehanne was taking in what she said, now Catherine was talking more like a saint should. She flexed her hands, dropped the clothes Catherine had brought, and lifted her fingers to her waist.

Catherine hadn't been aware of what the girl was wearing until she saw the stiff fingers start fumbling to untie the first cords. Jehanne's doublet of sturdy leather was attached to the ragged brown hosen on her legs by strong leather laces. Catherine stared. So many laces. Dozens of them--many more than Catherine had ever seen on such a garment--and each one tied into two strong eyelets on the hosen, and another eyelet on the doublet. Jehanne's fingers knew how to untie them without her looking, but even with those practiced fingers going at speed it was a slow business. It seemed hours before there was a fringe of maybe twenty bent strips of leather hanging all around the peasant girl's middle, allowing her finally to step out of the hosen and then unlace the doublet's side laces so she could pull it away from around her tethered arm.

It would be almost impossible to rape someone tied up in all these laces. It must also have been almost impossible for Jehanne to undo herself even to relieve herself; even walking must have been uncomfortable with all those knots and strings
chafing against her waist. Jehanne must be living in mortal terror of violation, Catherine thought.

That wasn't all Jehanne had on. Underneath that layer was another doublet, of wool this time; and more woollen hosen, again with the two legs sewn firmly together at the gusset. There were another twenty or thirty leather strips binding these inner layers together. Another agonizing eternity of fumbling fingers.

These rough, monstrously inconvenient garments touched Catherine to the quick, more than any words could have done. They could only have been made for one purpose: to keep Jehanne's virtue safe. Jehanne's incomprehensible bravery had seemed miracle enough, even before. But Catherine hadn't understood until now how frightened the girl must always have been of the men who surrounded her.

Jehanne wasn't frightened anymore, at least. She dropped the inner hosen down over the outer ones and stood naked, painfully thin and flat-chested, with her head bowed trustingly before Catherine, waiting for her saint to solve the next problem.

Looking at the chain, Catherine realized what the problem was. It was going to be impossible to dress Jehanne in the women's clothes she'd brought without unfastening her from the wall. But, she realized, it was equally impossible to call back the guard to fiddle with keys and manacles while Jehanne, who was so fearful of soldiers' violence, was naked.

She had to find the answer. Jehanne depended on her saint. Catherine had to be the saint. With a little prayer of her own to the real Saint Catherine, she picked up the kirtle. The answer came out of her hands rather than her mind. She ripped the shoulder seam open on one side, all the way along the top of the sleeve, and dropped the under dress on the floor by Jehanne. Jehanne, apparently understanding what she needed to do, stepped into it and pulled it up over her unchained arm. One side of her body was now adequately covered. The cloth on the other side still hung down, needing sewing up along the ripped sleeve. Catherine was thinking of taking a few of the leather cords from the discarded hosen, and tying the sleeve together with them, when, with a flash of gratitude and memory, she looked down at her own sleeve. Saint Catherine might have
answered her prayers--the needle she'd been using that morning when she put down her sewing was still flashing on her forearm. Catherine tacked the sleeve together until the kirtle hung securely and modestly on the girl's emaciated frame.

There was nothing she could do about the gown. It was old, but the gray broadcloth stuff was too stout and well-made to rip without a knife. Still, she held it out for Jehanne, guided her free arm through the first sleeve, then wrapped the loose side round the girl's shoulders, over the chain. At least it would keep Jehanne warm until she was moved next, when the chain would be undone; when she'd be able to put her other arm in.

She was gathering up the boys' clothes, not dissatisfied with her handiwork, when, in that small, expressionless voice, Jehanne said: "I've always obeyed you. I always will. You'll keep me safe. I pray, dear Saint Catherine, that you'll always keep me safe."

Catherine had wanted to stay and talk to Jehanne, but not like this. It would have been so strange and false to accept Jehanne's prayers to Saint Catherine. So she straightened up, putting the stinking bundle under her arm, then she bent her head and kissed the top of Jehanne's head. She needed to think of something in farewell that sounded virtuous, but not as though she were actually imitating a saint. After a moment's thought, she said: "Let us never be afraid."

Then she went to the door without looking back, and banged loudly to be let out.

She felt relieved, almost shriven, until she gave the bundle of clothes to the head of the guard outside. The men snickered when they saw the white Saint Michael crosses sewn on the discarded inside shirt. As Catherine turned away, trying not to see the ugly grins, she heard one of them mutter, "So much for Saint Michael.
He
hasn't been helping her much lately, has he?"

There was a full moon, and the evening star, and a soft breeze. Owain was beside her in the window seat with his arm round her, whispering in he rear, "You comforted her...it doesn't matter how confused she was...you did a good deed. She's safe now."

None of it helped. Catherine couldn't take her eyes off the tower, or the restless men. "They were so--
smug,
" she whispered back, knowing she was repeating herself. "As if they meant mischief. As if they knew something."

Both of them were still watching when a new man came out of the keep and walked across the flickering courtyard to join the crowd outside the tower. Catherine could only see long bony legs under a flowing houppelande; a dark cap on the head. It could have been any of the dozens of lords at Rouen. It was only when he stopped at the brazier where the guards were warming themselves to talk to the head guard--when he rubbed his hands together at the fire and turned around to take the bundle the head guard was offering him--that Catherine saw his face.

Owain said, and there was foreboding in his voice: "That's my lord Warwick."

"What's he doing out there?" Catherine asked, feeling suddenly cold. A pointless question, she knew. There was no answer Owain could give. But by then one of the guards was already unlocking the door to the tower and letting Warwick in.

The men had got a flagon from somewhere. They started passing it around as soon as Warwick was inside the tower, swigging and swaggering. Within minutes they were capering around their fire, singing and whooping like lunatics. They'd never normally be allowed to carry on like that unpunished, especially with Warwick so close. But no one came to stop them.

Catherine tightened her hold on Owain's hand.

The moon had gone before Warwick came out. Instead of disciplining the unruly soldiers, he just went up and stood by the fire again, watching them; tapping his foot to their lewd songs. When one of the rowdies danced up to him and pushed the flagon in his face, he took it, clapped the man on the back, and swigged at it himself.

They could see his silhouette against the flames. He was dabbing at his face with a big piece of cloth that he was pulling out from under his arm.

"What's he got there?" Owain muttered, more to himself than to her.

Catherine wished she didn't know the answer. "The sleeve of the gray robe I took Jehanne," she said harshly. "He's taken it. He's gone in there and torn the woman's clothes off her back."

She shut her eyes. She didn't want to imagine that scene. She was sure Jehanne wouldn't have submitted without a struggle. But how could you struggle against a big man like Warwick, if you were chained up and a girl?

And Warwick had taken a bundle inside with him. She didn't want to imagine what it had contained, but the image of Jehanne's discarded men's clothes, the ones Catherine had taken out, came too readily to mind to avoid. Warwick would have brought back the men's clothes for Jehanne to put on again.

It was the only answer that made sense. Warwick needed to convict Jehanne of heresy. But for heresy to be a capital offense, it needed to be a repeat offense. If Jehanne's sin were to be punishable by death, he had to make her re-offend. He'd needed someone to bring her women's clothes after the trial ended, but only so he could strip them off her again later, then condemn her. Catherine, by volunteering clothing, had made herself the two men's unwitting accomplice. But anyone would have done for the women's clothes stage of the proceedings; if it hadn't been her, there'd have been some nun or housewife somewhere who'd have served for this stage, who'd have provided the same kind of garments Catherine had.

Warwick and Bishop Beauvais must have been planning this ending all along. With a wave of nauseous anger, she realized: Bishop Beauvais knew; of course he knew; he as good as announced in advance that this would happen.

There was no trial scheduled for the next day, but the clerics who'd been so reluctantly taking part before now began turning up in the courtyard anyway. A dozen extra guests trooped into the hall with the English household at midday. There were places set for them all.

Catherine had slept badly, slumping down on the bed when Owain persuaded her to, but curling up on herself once there, pulling at her crucifix, praying, startling awake, furious with
herself for her weakness of purpose, getting up and pacing up and down the floor, moving her lips.

"You need to sleep," Owain had said, watching her from the bed, lying fully clothed with his hands behind his head.