The Queen's Lover (70 page)

Owain wanted his master and kindly Duke John to reach the compromise they needed. In the back of his mind, a memory stirred. There was something he thought he could try.

The door to the Tower of Falconry, where the King's library had been, where Owain remembered a big book containing the coronation
ordo,
was chained and locked, but that didn't seem to matter. Half of the door itself had been bashed in. You could bend down and step through the hole, two planks wide.

Owain only realized how ruined it was once he'd done that. The air inside smelled mildewed and full of regrets. He could hear a dripping from somewhere on the wall. His torch reflected a shimmery glistening. There were birds or rats moving about somewhere above. There were puddles on the floor.

He shook his head, suddenly considerably less sympathetic to Duke John. War or no war, there was no reason, except catastrophically bad housekeeping and ignorance, to have let this treasure trove of books get so wet. He could only hope the water was getting in from below, and the illuminated manuscripts
above were safe. But it seemed likelier that part of the roof had come off and no one had bothered to mend it.

He went to the stone stairs. He climbed up carefully, letting his arms slide up the walls on both sides in case he slipped on the moisture underfoot. In the lowest of the reading rooms he stopped inside the door, slipped his torch into the wall sconce, and looked around.

The smell was worse here. As his eyes got used to the gloom, he could see why. Entire shelves of toppled books were soaked and stuck together, sagging and sideways, in a chaos of animal skin and ink puddles and rot. Other books were on the floor where they'd fallen. The pages that survived were brittle and stiff. There was a squeaking all around. There must be mice nesting everywhere.

He stood, shaking his head, lost in the pity of it, appalled by the sheer ignorant carelessness that had done more damage than deliberate violence. He was thinking of the library at the Hotel Saint-Paul; the libraries of the Dukes of Orleans and Berri. There had been libraries at the University and libraries in the monasteries. Nothing so fine as this, but all of them repositories of beauty and memory, representing the thousands upon thousands of hours of thought from the men and women with the finest minds in the world, all intent on creating and preserving loveliness for the enjoyment of others...for the future...for children and grandchildren they would bequeath their knowledge to...and now lost, perhaps all of them. Lost.

He picked up the nearest book that he thought wouldn't crumble in his hands. Half an illustrated page came soggily away. A knight; a lady. A blurry border that had once shown red and gold roses. Owain made out the knowing, mischievous words:
"After all these efforts, when I finally approached the rosebush, so close I could stretch out my hands as I'd yearned to for so long, and pluck the rosebud from the branches, Fair Welcome started praying to God that I would do the rosebud no outrage, and I promised him solemnly, because he begged me and insisted, that I wouldn't do anything now that wasn't both her will and mine..."

It nearly made him laugh. It was the lascivious, nudging, winking last page of the
Romance of the Rose:
the book whose lewd suggestiveness had so alarmed Christine and set her off on her defense of women. He dropped it. But he thought even Christine might have felt regret to see a book--even this one, which she'd so hated--destroyed so carelessly.

He shivered. This place felt and smelled unclean. He wanted to grieve for the end of that dream of civilization and beauty that Paris had once been. He wanted to get away.

He took the torch down.

He'd reached the top of the stairs before he remembered to check for the big blue book of the coronation
ordo.
It was on the floor, under two other books, but they'd melted together: a thick wet heap of decay. The pages wouldn't separate, they just clumped together and tore. It was hopeless.

Owain went downstairs, tight-faced. Now he really knew that the Paris of his youth was dead.

He was surprised at Catherine's calm. Sleepily, peaceably, she muttered, "Well, now we know, we can tell Duke John to mend the roof. He didn't mean any harm. And it's a great pity about the
ordo.
But some of the other books will dry out."

"But," he said, and his body was still holding on to the tightness of the memory, "so much will still be lost." He hadn't expected this indifference from her. She'd been the one who'd wanted the coronation just right.

She put an arm heavy with sleep over his chest. She murmured: "We've spent so long away...we were so young when we were here. It's all golden in our minds...we only remember how lovely Paris was, how civilized...but, perhaps...it wasn't, not really, was it?"

He thought of walking down Saint Anthony Street with Christine on his first evening, and seeing a sunset and cherry blossoms over walls, and bright clean white turrets rising up to the sky, as fine as needles, as intricately worked as lace. Yes, he thought passionately, grieving for its passing, that was loveliness.

She kissed him. "I didn't have you then," she muttered
drowsily. He could hardly make out the last words she mumbled as she drifted back into sleep. He thought she said: So now is better.

Morning brought a biting wind that howled through the streets outside, blowing hats off and knocking at shutters and doors like the undead.

They gathered around the table again, with a couple of scriveners at a lower table to take notes of their plans. Duke John sat uncomfortably, scratching at himself, looking ashamed, and letting the Cardinal, sitting just in front of Owain, do all the talking.

Catherine listened quietly. Duke John kept stealing uncertain glances at her.

"...so a traditional French ceremony is out of the question," Cardinal Beaufort said brightly at the end of the litany of misfortunes. He leaned forward and his eyes were alight with enthusiasm. If Owain hadn't known better he'd have said the Cardinal was bringing her good news, not bad. "However, that may be for the best," the Cardinal swept on. "Because, as we all know, this is no longer the France of tradition. So it might be more fruitful to think of devising a new form of ceremony--one that reflects the marriage of our two kingdoms--one that shows the people of France how things are now."

"Yes," Catherine said.

"It could take place in Paris, for instance," the Cardinal continued, so intent on the persuasive case he was making that he seemed not to have heard Catherine agree.

"Yes," Catherine said.

"With a revised form of words..."

"Yes," Catherine said.

"...and, mm,
revised
regalia."

"Yes," Catherine said, and Owain could hear now that there was a trace of humor in her voice. "Dear Uncle"--then she turned to Duke John--"dear brother. Please. I agree. I was wrong. We must have been working for, hoping for, the wrong thing. An old-style French coronation would be wrong. Let's do something different, as you suggest." And she smiled
rather dreamily at the astonishment and relief flooding their faces.

"Thank you," Duke John said, and tentatively bowed his head. They could all hear the depth of the gratitude in his voice.

Later, when they were alone, Owain said, "Everyone's a little scared of you now."

"Yes," she said, sounding surprised. "I saw that."

"You did the right thing today, by giving way so graciously," he went on.

She nodded again. She said, still in that dreamy, accepting voice: "I wanted to make them happy. I could see how much it mattered to them. And they've been kind to me." After a while, she added: "In any case, there was nothing else to do, was there? What I wanted, thought I wanted--before--wasn't meant to be; I see that now. Now I'm here I can see that France isn't what I remember anymore; this doesn't feel anything like where I spent my childhood. It's just a place I can be with you and Harry for a while longer. So...if the Charlemagne treasures have been stolen and we can't have a real French coronation...I suppose that must be God's will. We'll just have to make do."

She paused, then shook that melancholy thought away. She even laughed.

"Anyway," she added, sounding, Owain thought, extraordinarily unworried, "it will still take months before those two work out what kind of coronation we
can
have." And she snuggled tighter into his arms, clinging to him, perhaps imagining them having a crown made, or sending to England for one, or consulting bishops as to the right form of words for a French crowning. "We still have time."

He could see, for a moment, that she really did want time--all the time she could still borrow, or steal. He was relieved at that, at least. Sometimes this new passivity of hers seemed like indifference; as if she'd given up.

But even Catherine was surprised by Cardinal Beaufort's swift next move. She hadn't bargained for his chess player's mind.

He called another coronation planning meeting for the next
afternoon. He was already in the room, wearing a pleased, slightly furtive smile, when Catherine walked in. He had two men waiting to open a box on the table.

Catherine recognized the box as one of the ones the Cardinal had traveled with from England. She'd seen it un loaded at every dock and stable along the way: a big rough lump of a thing, made of cheap oak, studded with nails. As soon as Catherine was seated, Duke John gestured for the box to be opened. The men prised the lid away with a rough blade. There were grunts, and the creak of wood as it came up.

Once the lid was gone, Duke John stepped forward and looked. Inside were many layers of old gray woolen blankets. Placidly, Catherine waited. Duke John pulled out a smaller box; equally roughly made. He looked at the lock. "Henry," he said, and, with a look of intense concentration that Catherine didn't think the task merited, the Cardinal fiddled at his belt, found the key, stepped forward, and opened the lock.

Catherine's mouth fell open as Duke John lifted out first a book, then, with a grunt, a crown. She recognized the enormous sapphire in it at once. Saint Edward the Confessor's. Harry had worn it at Westminster Abbey.

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the deceit being uncovered. So the Cardinal really had gone off with the English crown jewels, after all. Duke Humphrey hadn't been making the story up. For all his air of bewildered innocence, the churchman had been carting the most sacred of jewels around France with him for all this time. In a cheap old box.

When she looked behind the Cardinal's chair at Owain, she could see he was as dumbfounded as she was. His eyes were huge, his mouth open like hers. But when she looked at Duke John, she could see only that he was completely still; waiting. He couldn't meet her eyes. He wasn't half as good a liar as the Cardinal. It was obvious he'd known about the box.

"But," she stammered, "why didn't you
say
?"

The Cardinal looked a little pained. "Well, my dear, if you recall, you were against the idea of anything but the proper jewels--the proper everything--until yesterday. I didn't like to upset you, when you still had your heart set on perfection. But
I thought we should perhaps have a little something in reserve, just incase."

He folded his hands together. He folded his lips together. He was trying to look modest, and almost succeeding.

"But, Uncle," Catherine said, feeling her heart melt, as it often did, when, after he'd pulled off a successful stratagem, the Cardinal got that smug look which he tried so hard to suppress, "I don't mean why didn't you tell
me;
I can see that. I mean Humphrey? He's furious with you...out for your blood...calling you a thief...All you had to do was tell him in advance, surely?"

Now it was Duke John's turn to hang his head. Catherine softened further when she saw the misery on those straightforward soldier features.

Gently, the Cardinal explained: "We didn't want Humphrey to know the French sword and crown had gone. He's been making enough trouble for John over his handling of the war as it is. I didn't want to give him any more ammunition. Much better for everyone--for England--if we can all struggle on as we are, at least trying to pull together. I thought: Least said, soonest mended."

Catherine's head was whirling with all the small deceits he'd perpetrated; layer upon layer of them. How could she ever fully trust him? For a moment she hovered on the edge of anger. But then she looked at Owain, and remembered all the ways in which she'd never taken the Cardinal fully into her trust either, and took pity on poor, honest, good-hearted Duke John, who was looking so agonized at her side, and let out her breath.

The Cardinal sensed she'd accepted his maneuver. He spread his arms and said, as engagingly as ever: "Humphrey will thank me for it when he understands--as long as everything has worked out well and the coronation been a success. His heart's in the right place, really."

She smiled back at him. He was so convincing. When he gazed at her so positively she almost believed that Humphrey would be grateful. It was even possible that the Cardinal could present the borrowing of the English crown in enough
of a favorable light that he and Duke John would be thanked for it.

"Dear Uncle," she said affectionately, "I just don't want you to get into trouble--even for Harry's sake. That's all." But she could see, from the naked relief on both men's faces, that they were satisfied--more than satisfied; grateful beyond words--with what she was now agreeing to. She was saving the situation for both of them. A coronation could go ahead.

Duke John got out a cloth and mopped his forehead. To her astonishment she saw he'd been sweating. How frightened they must have been, she realized, of the kind of conflict among noblemen that had started the destruction of France long ago. If this coronation was only good enough to stop that, it was good enough. "Thank you, my dear," Duke John muttered, and she loved the softness in his tired eyes. "This makes things much easier. It does indeed."

There was a pause.

"So," Duke John said, breaking the silence, "can we set a date?"