The Star of Lancaster (49 page)

A good meal was served and during it Joanna sat beside her guest and he talked to her of the war and the glories of Agincourt, of the King’s valour and the genius he was displaying in the conduct of the war. He regretted that he was not with his brother in France; but the King had assigned to him the task of keeping law and order in England during his
absence and that was a task which he was pursuing to the utmost of his capabilities.

‘We shall let nothing . . . but nothing . . . stand in our way, my lady, no matter what has to be done it shall be done.’

Ominous words perhaps.

She was right.

As soon as the meal was over he said he had matters of which he wished to speak with her, and she took him to an ante-chamber and began by asking him: ‘Where is my confessor?’

‘He has gone to London.’

‘I did not give him permission to go.’

‘No, my lady. He went on my command which is the King’s.’

‘For what reason?’

‘This is a painful subject and I would rather speak to you of it than let others do it. You are my stepmother and there has always been amity between ourselves.’

‘And still is I trust,’ she said.

Bedford was silent, and she looked at him in alarm. ‘Pray tell me without more delay what this means,’ she said.

‘That I will. You have two sorcerers in your employ, my lady. Their names I learn are Roger Colles and Petronel Brocart.’

‘These men are my servants. I would not call them sorcerers.’

‘What then, my lady?’

‘They are men with a knowledge of the stars . . . they predict the future.’

‘And on occasions
arrange
the future.’

‘I do not understand what you mean, my lord.’

‘It should be clear. You wish for some event to take place and . . . these men arrange it.’

‘How could that be! The future is in God’s hands.’

‘But it can often be helped by certain methods.’

‘You are talking in riddles.’

‘Forgive me. Your confessor has told us much. He says that these two men at your command work with the powers of evil.’

‘The man is a fool and a liar.’

‘My lady, he is a Minorite Friar.’

‘I would say he is a liar were he the Archbishop of Canterbury. He has always been of a jealous nature. He hated the friendship I showed for the astrologers.’

‘He says they were with you when the late King suffered from his illness.’

‘Oh God help me,’ murmured the Queen.

‘My father’s disease was a loathsome one. Many said it had witchcraft in it.’

‘I was with your father. I nursed him. He loved me till the end.’

‘That does not prove that you had no hand in ill-wishing him.’

‘This is nonsense. What good has his death brought me? It was better for me when he lived. He would never have allowed me to be treated as I am being now.’

‘If you were guilty of what some say you are, he would have wished you to answer for your sins.’

Joanna covered her face with her hands. ‘I loved the King,’ she murmured. ‘I nursed him through his sickness. He wanted me near him all the time.’

Bedford was silent.

‘He suffered greatly,’ she went on. ‘Not only with the pain but the fearful disfigurement.’

‘What was the disease which overtook my father?’ said Bedford. ‘It was said at the time that it was brought on through evil influences.’

‘That is a lie. Your father would have been the first to declare it so. He knew that I loved him, that I could tend him better than anyone.’

‘So we thought then, Madam.’

‘Of what else have you come here to accuse me?’ she demanded.

‘Of practising witchcraft, of working against the King.’

‘Working against the King! How could I do that? He is my friend. He has always been my friend.’

‘You did not show much friendship when you gave so niggardly to him in his need to pursue the war in France.’

‘I gave what I had to give.’

‘My father left you rich. You are said to be one of the richest women in the country.’

Now she saw it all. It was her money they sought. What a fool she had been not to have given the King what he wanted when he had come to see her. His brother was his lieutenant. Extortion was their plan. She felt a faint relief. If it was her money they wanted, they might spare her life.

Of course they would. They dared not take that. Henry could not afford to offend the Duke of Brittany nor the royal House of France to that extent. To make war was one thing but to murder members of the family another.

‘So you will believe the word of a treacherous priest against mine, my lord?’ she asked.

‘We shall investigate, of course. In the meantime I have decided to put you under guard.’

‘Here in Havering?’

‘No, you will go to Pevensey Castle. There Sir John Pelham will be your host.’

‘You mean my jailer?’

‘He will take good care of you and treat you as your rank requires.’

‘But I shall be his prisoner.’

‘And if you are guilty, my lady, your goods will be confiscated to the crown.’

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I understand. They will be of some help to the King in pursuing the war in France.’

Bedford was silent.

She was resigned. She knew her stepsons. They could make themselves believe that they were acting justly and all they cared about really was bringing money into the exchequer. She should have known better.

‘There is one request I have to make,’ she said. ‘My son Arthur is in Fotheringay. He is Henry’s prisoner as I shall be. Could we share our imprisonment?’

Bedford looked horrified.

She saw the thoughts chasing each other through his mind. Two of them in one castle! What plots they might fabricate.

‘You will go to Pevensey,’ he said stonily. ‘And now, my lady, you will wish to prepare. You leave tomorrow.’

He bowed and left her. She looked about her. Soon this place where she had lived during her widowhood would be a memory. She thought then of Colles and Brocart. Perhaps they should try to escape to France. Would it be wiser for them to go or stay? If they were caught something might be proved against them, innocent as they were. Yet if they fled that would be taken as an assumption of their guilt. She must warn them and leave them to make the decision.

The next day she left for Pevensey. When she was arriving at the castle she was treated by Sir John Pelham with the respect due to her rank, so she could not therefore complain of her reception.

If only she could have been with Arthur at Fotheringay she would have been almost content for it soon became clear that no case was to be brought against her. Colles and Brocart had not been questioned even. But her wealth had been confiscated.

Bedford had achieved his purpose. Her immense fortune was now in the hands of the King.

She would remain his prisoner, awaiting his pleasure.

Chapter XIV

K
atherine de Valois, Princess of France, was wondering what her fate was to be. Would she indeed be the bride of the King of England? It had seemed so once, but now she was not so sure. Nothing had ever been very sure in her life.

Her seventeen years had been turbulent ones. Sometimes she wondered how she had lived through them. Her father was mad – not all the time, it was true, but no one could be sure when he would lapse into that dismal state. Her mother was a schemer – a Jezebel they called her and perhaps not without cause. She had dominated Katherine’s childhood and the little girl had been terrified of her while she was filled with great depth of feeling – an admiration for her flamboyant beauty, an awe of her vitality, and a realisation of her power which at times seemed evil. The Queen was like a goddess who ruled the lives of her children – sometimes malignant, sometimes benign and to whom they must offer complete submission.

Isabeau of Bavaria was reckoned to be the most beautiful woman in France and as she was married to a man who, even though he was the King, was now and then little more than an
imbecile, perhaps it was not surprising that she, forceful woman that she was, should take over the reins of government and try to rule France.

Katherine could only rejoice in her passing out of childhood. At least now she was able to understand what was happening around her and practise some self-preservation. There had been wretched days when she was very young and she and her brothers and sisters had never known from one day to the next what was going to happen to them. They had longed for the days when their father came out of what he called ‘his darkness’. He was kind and affectionate and when he had emerged from that darkness everything would change miraculously. But they soon began to realise that they could never be sure when the shadows were going to claim him again.

She had been very young when Uncle Louis of Orléans was murdered in the streets of Paris, but she had been aware that some terrible disaster had occurred. At the time she and her brothers and sisters had been in the palace of St Pol where they had not had enough to eat. She had not understood at the time why life had changed so suddenly. From luxury to this abject poverty had seemed to her just the normal way of life. Later of course she knew that her father was in one of his lost periods and that her mother and Uncle Louis of Orléans were lovers and ruled the kingdom, for her mother had persuaded the King that his brother should be Regent during his lapses. With her sisters and Louis the Dauphin and the two younger brothers she had lived as best she could with the help of one or two lower servants. The others had all left because their wages had not been paid.

For a long time no one had come to see them. Strange days
they had been – but not altogether unhappy. It was amazing how quickly children could adjust themselves to a way of life. They had often been hungry but she could remember now the sheer joy of holding a cup of hot soup in her hands and the ecstatic moment when it touched her lips. Soup never tasted like that nowadays. They had all been dirty; they had lice in their hair and on their bodies; they would laugh as they caught them and vie with each other, boasting when theirs was the bigger catch. It was like a dream, looking back.

As she grew older, she understood what it all meant. Her mother took the revenues from the household exchequer so that she could live voluptuously with her lover. Uncle Orléans was no better. This would have gone on if their father had not one day walked out of his apartments at St Pol, blinking his eyes as though he had awakened from a dream – his madness gone and ready to rule again.

The children had been hustled out of the palace and out of Paris. They had quickly been pursued and brought back but not before they had been cleaned, clothed and fed; and soon after that Uncle Louis of Orléans had been murdered in the streets while he was leaving the Queen’s lodgings. This murder had been committed at the instigation of Katherine’s great-uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, who had decided to put an end to the rule of Orléans.

Her mother was imprisoned at Tours and Katherine and her sister Marie were sent to the convent of Poissy there to be educated and brought up in a manner fitting for Princesses.

It was a complete turn about – from the wild adventures of the world outside convent walls to the well-ordered life inside. There were lessons, prayers – endless prayers – living sedately, thinking sometimes of the wild days at St Pol when
she was hungry and lousy but for some reason she was not unhappy.

Marie declared herself to be disillusioned with the world. It was when she was thinking of their mother that she said this. Marie was becoming more and more drawn towards the convent life. Katherine never would be.

Her sister Isabella had returned from England where she had been the Queen until the people had deposed her husband. She had seen a little of Isabella, but her eldest sister was so withdrawn and melancholy that Katherine had not thought very much about her.

Then she had married the son of Uncle Orléans and when he had been murdered Isabella became the new Duchess. Poor Isabella, she had not been happy. Once she had come to the convent to see her sisters and she had told them that her happiness lay in England in the tomb of her first husband, Richard. She had died when her baby was born. Poor Isabella!