The Forbidden Queen

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘I am French, am I not? Is it not possible that I would wish my brother well?’

  ‘Curb your tongue,’ he ordered. ‘Such thoughts are unworthy of you and demeaning to me. And we are drawing attention to ourselves. We will give the populace no cause for prurient interest.’

  His fingers closed around my arm and he propelled me through the churchyard, so fast that I was forced to lengthen my stride to keep up with him. He was smiling for the sake of those who had come to bow and scrape, but his hand gripped like a vice. As soon as we had reached our accommodations and closed the outer door on the populace, he released me as if his hand was scalded. But I continued, driven on by a cold grip around my heart.

  ‘I am so sorry. I did not intend to demean either you or myself, Henry.’

  ‘Katherine.’ He turned his back on me, weariness now in his voice. ‘It is done. Leave it now. My brother, God rest his soul, is dead. The battle was a disaster. What more to say, for either of us? You can do or say nothing that could give me comfort or make it more acceptable to me that Thomas is dead. Let it lie.’

  I bit down on my lip, silenced at last. ‘I am sorry. I am so sorry for your grief.’ Nothing could have made it plainer that he did not need me, or even want me with him. I waited, expecting him to say more, but he did not.

  ‘Will you go to France?’ I asked eventually.

  ‘No. I told your father that I would return in midsummer to restart the campaign, and that is when I will go. Now I have business to attend to.’ And I was shrugged off, the door to his chamber closed against me.

  Did he find no value in any words of consolation I might offer, or even in the simple touch of my hand on his? As I stood outside that closed door, all I was aware of was a vast tide of loneliness sweeping up to enclose me. Why are you waiting here? I asked myself. What is there to wait for?

  Nothing.

  Henry came to my bed that night. I did not think his heart was in it even though his body responded magnificently. It took very little time.

  ‘Stay with me,’ I invited in despair, as I had once in London, as he shrugged into his chamber robe.

  Why would he not stay with me? It was what I wanted more than anything, to lie in his arms and listen to him talk, of his own ambitions, of the loss of his brother. That was what I wanted more than anything in the world, and if I could show him that I was not treasonably French but a loyal wife who cared for his grief and the destruction of his plans, then it was all I could ask for.

  I watched from my bed as Henry, pulling up a low stool, sat to slide his feet into a pair of soft shoes. He stopped, arms resting on his knees, and looked down at his loosely clasped hands.

  ‘Stay,’ I repeated, holding out my hand. ‘I’m sorry I was angry. Perhaps I did not understand.’

  When he shook his head, I allowed my hand to fall to the bedcover, my heart falling with it, remembering that Henry did not like to be touched unless he invited it. Yet still I would try. ‘Do we go on to Lincoln by the end of the week?’ I asked.

  ‘I will go to Lincoln, yes.’

  ‘Where will we stay? Another bishop’s palace with no heating and poor plumbing?’

  ‘I will go to Lincoln,’ he repeated. ‘And you will return to London.’

  I felt the cold begin to spread outward from my heart. ‘I thought I would travel with you, to the end of the progress.’

  ‘No. It’s all arranged. You’ll travel to Stamford, then through Huntingdon and Cambridge and Colchester.’ Henry listed them, all already planned, everything in place, with no room for my own wishes. ‘They are important towns and you will make formal entries and woo the populace in my name. It is important that you are seen there.’

  ‘Would it not be better for me to be seen at your side?’ I asked. ‘A French Queen, whom you hold in esteem, despite the defeat?’

  ‘Your loyalty is not in question,’ he stated brusquely.

  I sat up, holding out my hands, palms up, in the age-old gesture of supplication. ‘Let me come with you, Henry. I don’t think we should be parted now.’

  But Henry stood and moved to sit on the bed beside me. At first he did not touch me, then he reached out a hand to stroke my hair, which lay unconfined on my shoulders.

  ‘Why would you wish to? You’ll be far more comfortable at Westminster or the Tower.’

  ‘I want to travel with you. I have seen so little of you since we were first wed, and soon you’ll be back in France.’

  ‘You’ll see enough of me,’ he remarked, as if it was a matter of little consequence how many hours we spent in each other’s company.

  ‘No.’ I twisted my fingers into the stiffly embroidered lions on his cuff, and said what I had always resisted saying. ‘I love you, Henry.’ Never had I dared speak those words, or even hint at my feelings, fearful of reading the response in that austere face. Now I said them in a bid to remain with him, to make him realise that I could be more to him than I was, and I waited wide-eyed for his response.

  ‘Of course. It is good that a wife loves her husband.’

  It was not what I had hoped for. Merely a trite comment such as Guille had made on my wedding night. My belly clenched with disappointment.

  Do you love me, Henry?

  I dared not ask. Would he not tell me if he did? Or did he simply presume that I knew? A voice whispered in my mind, a voice of good but brutal sense: He does not love you, so there is nothing to say. I held tight to the emotions that rioted nauseously within my ribcage.

  ‘Then stay with me tonight,’ I said before my courage could die. ‘If we are to be parted, stay with me now.’

  ‘I have letters to write to France.’

  I swallowed the disappointment that filled my mouth. I would not ask again. At that moment I knew that I would never ask again.

  ‘You must make ready to leave at daybreak,’ he said.

  ‘I will do whatever you wish,’ I replied, weakly compliant. But I knew in my heart that there was no changing his mind.

  ‘You will prefer it.’ Henry stood. You will prefer it, I thought.

  ‘I will be ready. Henry…’ He halted at the door and looked back. ‘You don’t really think I would rejoice in my brother’s victory, do you?’

  For a moment he looked as if he was considering the matter and my heart lurched. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you would. I know you have no love for the Dauphin. And I think you have little interest in politics and what goes on in the war.’

  I forced myself to show no reaction, no resentment. ‘So you don’t condemn me for my birth and past loyalties.’

  ‘No. How should I? I knew the complications when I took you in marriage. Don’t worry about it, Katherine. Your position as my wife is quite secure.’ He opened the door. ‘And will become even stronger when you give birth to England’s heir.’

  And he closed the door at his back, reinforcing the reason he had come to me when his heart was heavy with grief for his brother. Not for comfort, or to spend a final hour with me, but to get a child on me before he parcelled me off to London so that I might sit in the vast rooms of Westminster with the heir to England growing inside me.

  A bleak fury raged within me, a desolation so deep that I should ever have thought that he could love me. He did not. He never had, he never would. Even affection seemed to be beyond what he could give me. He could play the chivalrous prince and woo me with fine words, he could possess my body with breathtaking thoroughness, but his emotions were not involved. His heart was as coldly controlled as his outer appearance.

  And—the anger burned even brighter—he had judged me to be nothing more than an empty-headed idiot, incapable of comprehending the difficulties of his foreign policies or the extent of his own ambitions. I was an ill-informed woman who had little wit and could not be expected to take an interest. I may have been ill informed when he first met me, but I had made it a priority to ask and learn. I was no longer ignorant and knew very well the scope of Henry’s vision to unite England and Franc
e under one strong hand.

  It was during that lonely night that I accepted that, even as I grieved for Henry’s loss of a beloved brother, my marriage was a dry and arid place. Why had it taken me so long to see what must have been obvious to the whole court?

  I rose at dawn, my mind clear. If all Henry wanted was an obedient, compliant wife who made no demands on him, then that was what he would have. Not waiting for Guille, I began to pack my clothes into their travelling coffers. Obedient and compliant? I would be exactly what he wanted, and after Mass and a brief repast, both celebrated alone—Henry was elsewhere—I stepped into the courtyard where my travelling litter already awaited me. Before God, he was thorough.

  It crossed my mind that the accounts of taxes paid and unpaid might prove a more beguiling occupation than wishing me God speed, but there he was, waiting beside the palanquin, apparently giving orders to the sergeant-at-arms who would lead my escort. It did nothing to thaw out my heart. Of course he was conscious of my safety: after last night—might I not be carrying the precious heir to England and France?

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, turning as he heard the brisk clip of my shoes on the paving. ‘You will make good time.’

  My smile was perfectly performed. ‘I would not wish to be tardy, my lord.’

  ‘Your accommodations will be arranged for you in Stamford and Huntingdon. Your welcome is assured.’

  ‘I expect they will.’ I held out my hand. Henry kissed my fingers and helped me into the litter, beckoning for more cushions and rugs for my comfort.

  ‘I will be in London at the beginning of May, when Parliament will meet.’

  ‘I will look for you then, my lord.’

  The muscles of my face ached with the strain of smiling for so long, and I really could not call him Henry.

  At a signal we moved off. I did not look back. I would not wish to know if Henry stayed to see my departure or was already walking away before my entourage had passed from the courtyard. And thus I travelled quite magnificently with a cavalcade of armed outriders, servants, pages and damsels. The people of England flocked to see their new Queen even though the King was not at her side.

  In Stamford and Huntingdon and Cambridge I was made to feel most welcome, I was feasted and entertained most royally, my French birth proving not to be a matter for comment. It should have been a series of superb triumphal entries, but rather a deluge of rejection invaded every inch of my body. I meant nothing to Henry other than as a vessel to carry my precious blood to our son, so that in his veins would mingle the right to wear both English and French crowns. I should have accepted it from the very beginning. I had been foolish beyond measure to live for so long with false hopes. But no longer.

  My naïvety, constantly seeking Henry’s love for me when it did not exist, was a thing of the past. His heart was a foreign place to me, his soul encased in ice.

  Why had I not listened to Michelle? It would have saved me heartbreak if I had. And although I knew from past experience that tears would bring no remedy, yet still I wept. My final acknowledgement of my place in Henry’s life chilled me to the bone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  He was back. Henry was in London. I knew of his approach to the city even before the cloud of dust from his retinue came in sight of the guards at the gates, since couriers had been arriving for the whole of the previous week, issuing a summons in the King’s name for a Parliament to meet to ratify the Treaty of Troyes. I knew of his arrival at Westminster, where I had already taken up residence, knew of the unpacking and dispersal of his entourage, Henry’s own progress to his private rooms. What I could not hear and deduce from my windows, I ordered Thomas, my page, to discover for me. The King was once more in residence in his capital.

  I had a need to speak with him.

  ‘How did he look?’ I asked, hoping my urgency would extract some specific detail.

  ‘He was clad in armour and a surcoat with leopards on it,’ Thomas reported with single-minded attention to the accoutrements of his hero, ‘and he wore a jewelled coronet on his helm and a sword at his side.’

  ‘Is he in good health?’ I asked patiently.

  He thought for a moment. ‘Yes, my lady. His horse is very fine too.’

  So why was I not waiting for Henry in the courtyard, a Queen to welcome her King? Because I now knew enough of Henry’s preferences to allow him to arrive and settle into his rooms in his own good time, without any distraction, as he brought himself abreast of messages and documents.

  I knew, with my newborn cynicism, that I might be awarded at best a cursory bow and a salute to my cheek, at worst a request that I return later in the day. Besides, I wanted my first meeting with him to be alone, not with the whole Court or his military escort as an interested audience.

  I waited in my chamber for an hour. He might come to me, to see how I fared, of course. Foolish hope still built like a ball of soft wool in my chest, only to unravel. Another hour passed. I could wait no longer. The excitement that had hummed through my blood for as many weeks as I could count on the fingers of one hand rippled into a warm simmer. It was, I acknowledged with some surprise, as close to happiness as I could expect.

  I picked up my skirts and I ran.

  I ran along the corridors, as I had once run out into the courtyard on the day after my marriage, my heart sore that Henry was leaving. Now I ran with keen anticipation through the antechambers and reception rooms to the King’s private apartments. The doors were opened for me by a servant who managed to keep his astonishment under control. Obviously queens did not run.

  ‘Where is the King?’ I demanded of him.

  ‘In the tapestried chamber, my lady.’

  On I went, walking now, catching my breath. Pray God that he was alone. But when I heard the sound of voices beyond the half-open door, irritation, disappointment slowed me. Should I wait? I hesitated, considering the wisdom of postponing this reunion, then knew I could not. I wanted to speak with Henry now. I pushed the door open fully and, not waiting to be invited, I entered.

  Henry was in conversation with his brother Humphrey of Gloucester and Bishop Henry. He looked up, frowning at the unwarranted disturbance of what was clearly a council of war, then, seeing me, his brow cleared.

  ‘Katherine…One minute.’

  ‘I have news,’ I stated, with only a modicum of grace.

  ‘From France?’ His head snapped round. ‘From the King? Is he still in health?’

  ‘As far as I know.’ The state of my father’s wits was of national importance, of course. ‘No, Henry. Not from France.’

  Since it was not from France, he looked at me as if he could not imagine what I might have to tell him of such importance to interrupt his own concerns. He addressed a scowling Humphrey. ‘There’s this matter of the Scots supplying arms to the Dauphinists. It must be stopped.’

  I walked forward until I could have touched him if I had chosen to. ‘I wish to speak with you now, Henry. I have not seen you for weeks.’ His brows climbed, but I stood my ground. I smiled. ‘I would like it if you were able to spare your wife five minutes of your time.’

  ‘Of course.’ His brief smile stretched his mouth. ‘If you will attend me here in the hour after noon.’

  I was neither surprised nor shocked. Nor was I reduced to easy tears. I had come a long way from the girl who had stood beside him in the church in Troyes. I had more confidence than the girl who had feared sitting alone at her own coronation feast. My weeks alone since my curtailed progress had at last added a gloss of equanimity, however fragile.

  ‘Now, my lord.’ I raised my chin a little. ‘If it please you.’

  I thought he might still refuse. I thought he might actually tell me to go away. Instead, Henry nodded to Humphrey and the bishop, who left us alone.

  ‘Well? News, you said.’

  ‘Yes.’ The bite of my nails digging into my palms was an acknowledgement that my courage was a finite thing. ‘I am carrying your child.’

  It was as
if I had stripped to my undershift in public. The stillness in the room prickled over my skin. Henry allowed the list he still held to flutter from his fingers, and for the first time since he had entered the room he really looked at me.

  ‘I carry your child,’ I repeated. ‘Before Christmas I think your child—pray God a son—will be born. You will have your heir, Henry.’

  My words, as I heard them spoken aloud, stirred within me such exhilaration that at last I would achieve something of which he would approve. Surely this would make the difference. This would bring his attention back to me, even if not his love. If I carried a son for him he would be grateful and attentive so that I would not be swept away, like a lazy servant sweeping dust behind a tapestry. I knew that this was the best thing I could do for him, for England.

  Since my discovery I had been counting the days to his return, telling no one but Guille, who held a bowl for me every morning as nausea struck. I would have Henry’s child: I would have his gratitude, and prove myself worthy of the contract made at Troyes that Parliament was about to ratify, not just for the crown I brought him but for the heir I had given him. Our son would be King of England and France.

  I ordered myself to stand perfectly still as he watched me from under straight brows. I did not even show my pleasure. Not yet. Why did he not say anything? Was he not as delighted as I?

  ‘Henry,’ I said when still he did not respond. ‘If I have a son you will have achieved all you have worked for. To unite the crowns of England and France.’ What was he thinking? His eyes were opaque, his muscles taut, the stitched leopards immobile. ‘Our child—our son—will be King of England and France,’ I said, unnerved. ‘Are you not pleased?’

  It did the trick. His face lit up in the smile such as he had used on the day that he had first met me, when it had turned my knees to water. It still did, God help me. It still did. He crossed the space between us in three rapid strides and seized my hands, kissing my brow, my lips with a fervency I had not experienced before.

  ‘Katherine—my dear girl. This is the best news I could have had. We will order a Mass. We will pray for a son. A son, in God’s name! Go and dress. We will go to the Abbey and celebrate this momentous event.’