The Forbidden Queen

by Anne O'Brien

  I looked at it through Michelle’s eyes rather than my own hopeful ones. ‘I look like an old hag, don’t I?’ My silent plea to the Virgin was impassioned.

  Holy Mother. If Henry of England does not like my face, may he at least see the value of my Valois blood.

  And how did my erstwhile suitor receive my portrait? I never knew, but I was informed by the Prioress that my days at Poissy were numbered.

  ‘You will leave within the month.’ Great-Aunt Marie’s manner was no more accommodating than on the first day that I had stepped over the threshold. But I no longer cared. That new life was approaching fast.

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘King Henry has made a vow to wed you.’

  ‘I am honoured, Mother.’ My voice trembled as I shook with a new emotion.

  ‘It is a political alliance. You must play your part to chain Henry to Valois interests.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’ One day soon I would wear fur-edged sleeves far richer than those of Great-Aunt Marie.

  ‘I trust that you will take to your marriage the attributes you have learned here at Poissy. You training here will be the bedrock on which to build your role as Queen of England.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  Bedrock. Role. Chaining Henry to Valois interests. It meant nothing to me. I could barely contain my thoughts, or the smile that threatened to destroy the solemnity of the occasion. I would be a bride. I would be Henry’s wife. My heart throbbed with joy and I hugged Michelle when next I could.

  ‘He wants me! Henry wants me!’

  She eyed me dispassionately. ‘You are such a child, Katherine! If you’re expecting a love match, it will not happen.’ Her voice surprised me with its harshness, even when, at the distress she must have seen on my face, her eyes softened. ‘We do not deal in love, Katherine. We marry for duty.’

  Duty. A cold, bleak word. Much like indifference. Foolish as it might be, I was looking for love in my marriage, but I would not display my vulnerability, even to Michelle.

  ‘I understand,’ I replied solemnly, repeating the Prioress’s bleak words. ‘Henry will wed me to make a political alliance.’

  And in truth doubts had begun to grow, for there had been no gifts, no recognition of King Henry’s new-kindled desire for me as his wife, not even on the feast of St Valentine when a man might be expected to recall the name of the woman he intended to wed. There were even rumours that he was still looking to the royal families of Burgundy and Aragon, where there were marriageable girls on offer. How could that be? I think I flounced in sullen misery. My Burgundy cousins, the daughters of Duke John, were inarguably plain, and surely the Aragon girls could not be as valuable as I to the English King’s plans to take Europe under his thrall.

  I offered a fervent rosary of Aves and Paternosters that the portrait had been more flattering than I recalled to fix me in his mind, and that he would make his choice before I became too old and wizened to be anyone’s bride. Before I became too old to covet sleeves edged with finest sables.

  ‘Is the English King young? Is he good to look at?’ I had asked the Queen.

  Now I knew.

  King Henry took my breath. I saw him before he saw me. King Henry the Fifth of England, in all his glory. There he stood, alone in the very centre of the elaborate pavilion, quite separate from the two English lords who conversed in low voices off to one side. Oblivious to them, and to us—the French party—hands fisted on his hips and head thrown back, Henry’s eyes were fixed on some distant place in his mind, or perhaps on the spider weaving its web into one of the corners between pole and canvas. He remained motionless, even though I suspected that he knew we had arrived.

  For his own reasons, he made no effort to either acknowledge us or to impress us with his graciousness. Even his garments and jewels, heavy with symbolism, were worn with a cold insouciance. Why would he need to impress us? We were the supplicants after all, he the victor.

  But what a presence he had. Even the magnificent pavilion with its cloth of gold and bright banners was dwarfed by the sheer magnetism of the man. His was the dominant personality: the rest of us, English and French alike, need not have been there. I was filled with awe. And a bright hope. I had anticipated this meeting for three years. I was eighteen years old when I finally met the man I would wed, if all things went to plan, in that splendid canvas-hung space on the banks of the Seine at Meulan.

  On one side of me stood Queen Isabeau, resplendent in velvet and fur, accompanied by a sleek and powerful leopard, a hunting cat and not altogether trustworthy, held on a tight rein by a nervous page. King Henry might not see the need to impress, but Queen Isabeau did.

  On my left was my second cousin, John, Duke of Burgundy, thus buttressing me with royal power and approval. Duke John was sweating heavily in his formal clothing with its Burgundian hatchings.

  My father, who should have led the exchange of offers, was not present, having been deemed mad today, attacking with tooth and nail the body servants who had attempted to clothe him for this occasion. They had given up and my mother had taken command of the proceedings, leaving my father locked in a room at Duke John’s headquarters in Pontoise.

  Finally, behind us, filling the entrance to the pavilion, was the necessary pack of soldiers and servants clad in Valois colours to give us some semblance of regal authority, the vividly blue tabards imprinted with enough silver fleurs-de-lys to make my head swim. We needed every ounce of authority we could fashion out of defeat and lure this English king into some manner of agreement before we were entirely overrun by English forces.

  And I? I was the tender morsel to bait the trap.

  We must have made a noise—perhaps it was the leopard that hissed softly in its throat—or perhaps King Henry simply felt the curiosity of my gaze, for he abandoned the spider to its own devices, turned his head and stared back. His gaze was cool, his face unresponsive to the fact that every eye was on him, his spine as rigid as a pikestaff. And then there was the scar. I had not known about the scar that marked the hollow between nose and cheek. But it was not this that took my eye. It was the quality of his stare, and I felt my blood beat beneath my skin as he made no gesture to respond to our arrival. His appraisal of me was unflatteringly brief, before moving smoothly on to Duke John and Isabeau.

  Well, if he would not look at me, I would look at him. I knew he was thirty-two years of age because my mother had so informed me. Much older than I, but he carried the years well. He was tall—taller than I, which I noted with some degree of satisfaction—tall enough to handle the infamous Welsh longbow with ease, a man who would not feel a need to be resentful of a woman who could cast him in the shade. He was fair skinned with a straight blade of a nose.

  Surprisingly to me, his physique was slender rather than muscular—I had expected a more robust man for so famous a soldier—but I decided there might be hidden strength in the tapering fingers that were clenched around his sword belt. Did he not have a reputation for knightly skills and personal bravery? And also for exceptional manners, but not at this moment, for the hazel gaze, as bright as a tourmaline, returned and fixed once more on my face. He did not make me feel welcome to this meeting of high diplomacy where my future would be decided. He was assessing me as he might have assessed the merits of a mare for sale.

  In that moment it seemed to me that his appraisal and manner were quite as careless of my person and my predicament as Great-Aunt Marie’s.

  A little frisson of awareness touched my nape. This was a man with a high reputation, a man who could grind us into dust if he so desired. I must play my part and make an impression as a princess of Valois, even though a breath of fear flirted along the skin of my forearms like summer lightning.

  Willing courage into my bones, I locked my eyes with his even as my knees trembled at my presumption, until Duke John cleared his throat, like an order given to commence battle. The two English lords abandoned their deliberations, while Henry turned full face—and Isabeau stiffened at my side. I w
ondered why, noting the direction of her interest, and that her finely plucked brows had drawn down into the closest she would dare come to a diplomatic scowl.

  I followed her stare, curious, and understood. My mother was rigid with fury, not because of the ostentatious wealth of the rubies, as large as pigeon’s eggs in the chain resting on King Henry’s breast and the opulence of the trio of similar stones, blinding in the sun, which he wore on the fingers of his right hand. Not even because of the golden lions of England that sprang from two of the quarters on his heavily embroidered thigh-length tunic, although they were heraldically threatening enough. It was the fleurs-de-lys of France, silver on blue, a mirror image of our own livery, that occupied the two counter-posed quarters on Henry’s impressive chest, shouting to all the world that this man claimed our French Crown as confidently as he claimed his own. He had claimed it before we had even taken our seats to discuss the delicate matter. I had been wrong. He was without doubt here to make an impression after all, but not to win friends, only to ensure that he cowed us into submission before a word had been exchanged.

  As I heard Isabeau’s sharp inhalation and saw the barely disguised disdain in her face, I understood that this negotiation might still come to nought. I might still not reach the altar as a bride.

  Holy Virgin, let him want me enough to accept a compromise. Let him want me enough to accept my mother’s concessions. Make my mother compliant enough to offer concessions.

  The two English lords were approaching.

  ‘The Duke of Bedford,’ Duke John muttered sourly out of the corner of his mouth. ‘The King’s brother. The other’s the Earl of Warwick—another bloody puissant lord.’

  But at least they granted us that belated welcome, speaking in French for our comfort and my unspoken gratitude, for my English was not good beyond commonplace greetings.

  Lord John, Duke of Bedford, brother to the magnificent Henry, bowed and introduced us to Henry of England.

  ‘La reine Isabeau de France. Et sa fille, Mademoiselle Katherine.’

  And the Earl of Warwick gestured us forward, his hand hard on the collar of a wolfhound that had taken fierce exception to the presence of the leopard.

  ‘Bien venue, monsieur, mes dames…’ continued Lord John. ‘Votre presence parmi nous est un honneur.’

  A flurry of bowing and curtseying.

  ‘Bienvenue, Mademoiselle Katherine,’ Lord John encouraged me, smiling with a friendly gleam in his eye, and I found myself smiling back. So this was the Duke of Bedford, whose reputation was almost as formidable as King Henry’s. I liked his fair face and amiable features. I liked it that he had taken the trouble to speak to me and put me at my ease, as much as it was possible, even though my heart continued to gallop.

  His brother, the King, took no such trouble. King Henry still did not move, except for a furrow growing between his well-marked brows. So he was frowning at us, and his voice, clear and clipped, cut through the formal greetings.

  ‘We did not expect you to arrive quite yet.’

  And he spoke in English. The frown, I decided, was not for me but for his brother’s kindness. This haughty King intended to speak in English, forcing us to struggle in a language in which not one of us was able to converse equably. He looked us over, chin raised in chilly superiority, while my mother, glorious with a gold crown and jewelled fingers, stiffened even further under the scrutiny. Could my heart beat any harder, without stopping altogether? This was going from bad to worse, and King Henry had yet to exchange one word with me.

  ‘We understood that you wished to begin negotiations immediately,’ Isabeau replied curtly, in French.

  ‘Is the King not present with you?’ Henry demanded, in English.

  ‘His Majesty is indisposed and rests at Pontoise,’ Isabeau responded, in French. ‘His Grace of Burgundy and I will conduct negotiations in His Majesty’s name.’

  ‘It is my wish to communicate with His French Majesty.’ Henry, in English.

  I sighed softly, overwhelmed by despair at the impasse. Was King Henry truly so insufferably arrogant?

  The King waited with a shuttered expression. Warwick shuffled, his hand still firmly on the hound’s collar, Bedford studied the floor at his feet, neither one of them venturing into French again. It could not have been made clearer to us that the English King’s word was law. And there we stood, silence stretching out between Henry and Isabeau, until, in the interest of diplomacy, Duke John jettisoned his pride and translated the whole into Latin.

  Finally, drawing me forward into his direct line of sight, he added, ‘We wish to present to you, Your Majesty, the lady Katherine.’

  And I stepped willingly enough, glowing with female pride, for they had truly slain the fatted calf for me. I had no need to feel shamed by my appearance on that day. I was the one bargaining point we Valois had, and Duke John—not my mother, of course—had decided that I was worth some outlay. More coin than I had ever imagined in my life, the vast sum of three thousand florins, had been spent on my appearance. I prayed I would be worth it as I breathed shallowly, my palm damp with nerves within my cousin’s heavy clasp.

  And so, splendid in my fur-edged sleeves at last, I made my first curtsey to Henry of England.

  I had a price to pay for my moment of glory. It was all very well to dress me as if I were already Queen of England, but in a hot tent on a sultry day in May, I was as heated as if I were labouring in the royal kitchens.

  The heart-shaped headdress that confined all my hair sat heavily on my brow like a boiled pudding, the short veiling clinging damply to my neck. The folds of the houppelande, quite beautiful and as blue as the Virgin’s robe, furred and embroidered and belted beneath my breast with a jewelled girdle, were so heavy that trickles of sweat ran down my spine. But I braced myself against the discomfort.

  I suppose I looked well enough, a true princess, as I lifted my skirts a little way with my free hand to exhibit the pleated under-tunic of cloth of gold. All very fine—except that it was all outward show. My linen shift was old and darned and rough against my naked flesh. My shoes let in the damp from the dew-laden grass. The florins had not run to new shoes or undergarments, but the King would not notice that beneath my magnificently trailing skirts and jewelled bodice.

  King Henry took in my glory, sleeves and all, in one comprehensive, dismissive glance.

  ‘We are gratified,’ he said, but still in English. ‘We have long wished to meet the princess of France, of whom we have heard so much.’ And he bowed to me with impeccable grace, his hand on his heart.

  ‘Monseigneur.’ Now that I was face to face with him, almost within touching distance of those snarling leopards on his tunic, any initial courage fled. I sank into a second low curtsey, because he seemed to expect it of me, my eyes, cravenly, on the floor until I felt a stir of air, heard a foot fall, and the soft boots that he wore came into my vision. His hand was stretched down to me.

  ‘My lady. You must stand.’

  It was gently said, yet undeniably a command. I placed my hand in his and he drew me to my feet. Leaning a little, in formal recognition, he lightly kissed me on one cheek and then the other. And then on my mouth with the softest pressure of his own. My heart fluttered. Blushing from throat to hairline, I felt the blood run hot under my skin as his lips brushed against me and his battle-rough palms were firm against mine. All I could think was: King Henry has kissed me in greeting. I stared at him, no words coming to those lips he had just saluted.

  ‘The rumours of your beauty do not lie, Lady.’ He led me a little distance away from our audience, his voice warming as he did so. ‘Now I can see for myself the value of the gift that the House of Valois would make to me.’

  This was undoubtedly a compliment, but his face was so stern. Did Englishmen not smile? I struggled with the English, embarrassingly tongue-tied, searching for a suitable reply.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked, when I failed.

  ‘Only a little, Monseigneur,’ I manage
d, with what I must presume was an appalling accent. ‘But I will learn more.’

  ‘Of course you will,’ he affirmed. ‘It is imperative that you do.’

  ‘I swear I will practise every day,’ I replied, unnerved by the seriousness of his response.

  But Henry’s interest had moved from my lack of linguistic skill as his eyes fell from my face to the bodice of my gown where a gold-mounted sapphire was pinned at my neckline.

  ‘What is it, my lord?’ I asked anxiously: the frown was back.

  ‘The brooch.’

  ‘Yes, my lord? It is a gift from Duke John, to honour the occasion.’

  ‘Where is the gift I sent you?’ he demanded.

  I shook my head in incomprehension. Seeing it, Henry condescended to address me in fluent court Latin. ‘I thought you might have worn the brooch, Mademoiselle.’ A rank chill drew all colour from his tone.

  ‘Which b-brooch, my lord?’ I stammered.

  ‘I sent you a brooch as a token of my regard. A lozenge with a fleur-de-lys set in gold with rubies and amethysts.’

  ‘I did not receive it, my lord.’

  The frown deepened. ‘It was a costly item. A hundred thousand ecus, as I recall.’

  What could I say? ‘I do not have it, my lord. Perhaps it was lost.’

  ‘As you say. Perhaps it fell into the hands of my enemies. I expect it graces the war coffers of the Dauphinists, your brother’s misguided supporters who would fight against me.’

  ‘So I expect, my lord.’

  It was a strangely unsettling conversation, leaving me with the thought that it was the value of the lost gift that concerned him more than the failure of it to reach me and give me pleasure. The English King was obviously displeased. I risked a glance, wondering what he would say next, but the matter of jewellery had been abandoned.

  ‘I have been waiting for you all my life, Katherine. It is my intention to wed you,’ he announced with cool and precise diction. ‘You will be my wife.’