The Forbidden Queen

by Anne O'Brien

  Madam Joanna absorbed it all, then announced with quiet authority: ‘I wish to speak with Katherine.’ And when we were alone, duke and bishop obediently departing: ‘Sit next to me. I hoped you would come and visit me.’

  I moved to the stool at her side. ‘I did not realise, my lady.’ What a poor excuse it sounded even to my ears, and what an appalling situation. ‘I did not even know—’

  ‘That I was a prisoner.’ She completed my thought with astonishing complacence.

  ‘Henry told me you chose to live a quiet life.’

  ‘Perhaps I would, in the circumstances.’ She lifted her arthritic hands with a little moue of distaste, before allowing them to fall gently back into her lap. ‘But this is no choice.’ Her smile was wry and humourless, her eyes sharp, demanding an honest response. ‘And no doubt you wish to know why my stepson keeps me under lock and key?’

  ‘Mistress Waring said that…’ How could I voice something so terrible?

  ‘I was accused of witchcraft.’ Madam Joanna frowned as if the words pained her. ‘It is true. So I am accused. Do you believe it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think Bishop Henry does. Or Gloucester.’ Their warm acknowledgement of the Queen Dowager, their affection for her, could not be ignored.

  ‘I don’t think Henry believes it either,’ Madam Joanna added dryly. ‘But he needed me to be vulnerable.’

  Again, I was lost for words. ‘But why?’

  ‘So that he could confiscate my dower lands and income, of course.’ Her candid explanation startled me, even more her calm acceptance of it. ‘England needed as much gold as she could raise in order to pursue the French wars. The easiest source to plunder was my dower. So how to get his hands on it? It was so simple. He had me accused of threatening his life with necromancy.’

  ‘But that’s despicable.’

  ‘I cannot disagree. And—do you know?—I have never been put on trial. I have been unfairly accused and incarcerated for more than two years in one castle or another.’

  It was too much for me to take in. ‘I can’t believe that he would do that.’

  ‘How long have you lived with Henry? Have you not yet learnt that he can be ruthless?’ Madam Joanna’s smile and voice acquired an edge worthy of a honed sword. ‘Where do you think he got the money for your dower?’

  If I was horrified before, now I was shocked almost into disbelief. It was a shattering revelation, undermining all my pleasure in what I had once considered to be Henry’s true consideration for me.

  To compensate for my lack of a dower in gold coin, Henry had provided me with the vast sum, to my eyes, of a hundred thousand marks to spend every year, as well as gifting me lands and estates, manors and castles, put aside for my own personal use. Henry had ensured that I was not a penniless supplicant, and once I had marvelled at his generosity. Now I learned that it was at the expense of this tragic lady.

  ‘My dower was exploited and I remain under duress until Henry decides to free me.’ Madam Joanna tilted her chin, wincing a little. ‘I’m not sure I can ever forgive him for that.’

  I could think of nothing to say that would assuage my guilt or add to Madam Joanna’s comfort. Her situation was truly deplorable. All I could manage was, ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘Why should you be? It was not your doing. Henry needed to fund your dowry, and mine was the obvious source. He is a man driven to reclaim the possessions of his ancestors and ensure England’s greatness,’ Madam Joanna continued. ‘The French war and England’s victory is his only concern.’

  ‘I know it is,’ I murmured. ‘Do you think I have not seen it for myself?’ It seemed disloyal to admit it, but Madam Joanna’s plain speaking encouraged me.

  Seeing my unease, Madam Joanna leaned to close her hand awkwardly over mine. ‘That is not good. You should go to your husband,’ she said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘It is almost a year now, is it not, since you last saw him? I know Henry very well, and I know that you should be with him. He allows his mind to be taken up with the here and now—and sometimes he needs to be reminded that there are other people who need his attention.’

  ‘But I don’t think he wants me with him.’ For the first time I confessed my fears aloud, seduced by the compassion in this gentle woman. ‘He does not love me, you see. He never has…’

  Her brows lifted. ‘How could he not love so beautiful a wife as you?’

  ‘He never pretended that he did. I thought he did, and I was naïve enough to think that he might. He was kind and chivalrous, you see.’

  Her hands tightened imperceptibly. ‘You poor girl. How could you know what was in his mind? I never could. As a young man he never permitted anyone to see what was important to him—almost in case it was snatched away and he lost it. And he has excellent manners. How does one read what he is thinking behind that impossible facade of dignified control? I don’t suppose he has changed.’

  Madam Joanna paused, then urged, her voice no longer soft, ‘Go to him. If you wish to make anything of your marriage other than a distant circling of minds that never meet and have no understanding of each other, go and be with him in France. It’s too dangerous to take the young boy, but Mistress Waring will care for your child. She will let no harm come to him.’

  ‘Yes. I will.’ It seemed such wise advice, such an intuitive reading of my life and Henry’s. And such solace to my heart that I was not the only one to be misled by Henry’s excellent manners.

  ‘Make him notice you. Beguile him. Lure him from the battlefield, if only for a little while.’ She smiled with a touch of very female mischief, which sat oddly on her weary features but hinted at her charm as a young woman. ‘It should not be beyond a beautiful woman.’

  Yes, Madam Joanna was wise indeed. Perhaps if Henry and I were to live together again, away from battlefields and campaigns, we could build a closeness, an understanding. Perhaps he would even grow to have an affection for me. Were not all things possible with God’s grace?

  ‘I will do it.’ The resolve settled in my belly.

  She patted my hand carefully. ‘Henry, I am certain, does know what a jewel he has in you. You are still young, with all your life before you. All you have to do is remind him and bring him home to England once in a while.’ We smiled our understanding. ‘And now I expect you must go. Your escort will be champing at the bit and damning gossiping women to the very devil. But you must come again. Sometimes I am lonely.’

  This brought to my mind what had been hovering over my head during the entire visit.

  ‘Mistress Waring said I should ask you about a prophecy,’ I said.

  ‘Did she?’ Madam Joanna’s all but invisible brows drew down into a line.

  ‘I gave birth to my son at Windsor. Henry forbade it and Mistress Waring disapproved. Henry gave no reason but Mistress Waring said there was a prophecy…’

  Madam Joanna’s features sharpened as she looked away beyond the window, to the scene of freedom denied. ‘I have no truck with such things, even though some would have me guilty of a far worse crime. But, yes, there was such a prediction made to poor Mary de Bohun who did not live to see her son grow to adulthood. A venomous little comment, I would say, product of some malicious mind that had no good thought for the House of Lancaster. It was told to me by Mary’s tirewoman in a moment of unedifying gossip over a cup of ale. From what you tell me, it seems that Henry too knows of the calumny from some source—I was not aware. Do you wish to know?’

  And she told me.

  It did not make for comfortable hearing, thus my first instinct was to reject it. I could not believe it. I would not believe it. I need have no fear for Henry, I decided; no decision that I made would have any influence over his future achievements. But what of my son? I tucked the disquieting words away, to consider at some later date if I, insisting on having my accouchement at Windsor, had wilfully put my hand to a pattern of events that could bring no good to Young Henry.

  The prophecy, known to so few but clearly to Henry,
baffled me, with its enigmatic warnings and dire predictions. But then I comforted myself. Madam Joanna discarded it as no more than mischief-making. I, guided by her good sense, would do the same.

  And I would take Madam Joanna’s advice. At the beginning of May, leaving my son in the care of his besotted parcel of nurses, escorted by Lord John and with a fair wind behind us, I sailed to Harfleur. Before I left, I wielded a pair of shears with great care.

  I had learned much that disturbed me about Henry’s treatment of Madam Joanna, yet she bore no grudges. Could I be equally tolerant, knowing his obsession with the campaign in France drove him in all things? I did not know. But in spite of everything that lay between us, I knew that I must make Henry notice me.

  The closer I got to Paris, the more nervous I became. In the year in which we had lived apart, I had changed and I now accepted Henry’s coolness towards me. It was a fact that could not be denied, and surely I was now mature enough to shoulder the burden that my regard for him might not be returned. And yet I continued to hope that Henry would at least rejoice at seeing me, even when it was a hope difficult to maintain.

  I could imagine Henry rejoicing at nothing but a hard-won battle, a successfully completed siege. In my head I could hear the timbre of his voice but not the greeting he would offer me. And what would I say to him? He had, after all, forbidden me to make this journey.

  And then there was the whole weight of Madam Joanna’s imprisonment. I suspected, as did she, that witchcraft had been a carefully crafted ploy to remove her dower lands from her because Henry had needed them for me. I felt the guilt of it, even though the lady had absolved me. I wondered if I would have the courage to challenge Henry with his calculated cruelty towards a woman who had done him no harm.

  I could not excuse Henry, however hard I tried, from an act of such arrogant self-interest that it took my breath. He could indeed be ruthless when pursuing his own set purpose, and how difficult it was to sustain a regard for a man who could be so coldly unscrupulous. I had seen his vicious temper in war; now I had experienced it in the very heart of his family.

  I thrust that unsettling thought away. Henry must be pleased with his victory at Meaux, with his son. Would that not cause him to smile at me and kiss me in greeting?

  ‘He’ll not send you home, you know,’ Lord John said, apparently seeing my anxiety. ‘You don’t have to fear that he will not treat you with respect.’

  ‘That is not my fear,’ I replied. My fear was that he would treat me with too much respect. That he would freeze me to the spot with frigid courtesy and an oppressive outward display of his kingship.

  ‘He’ll enjoy your company when he has time to think about it.’

  I smiled at him sympathetically. John was trying very hard.

  ‘I know he does not wish me to be here. But I thought that I must.’

  ‘You are a courageous woman, Katherine.’

  ‘I assure you I am not! My heart is thudding hard enough to crack a rib.’

  ‘There are many forms of courage.’

  When Lord John took hold of my hand, to fold it warmly in his as he helped me to dismount, I held on tightly. I would need all of his strength behind me when I came face to face with Henry.

  Henry and I met just outside Paris, at the palace at Blois de Vincennes, our joint arrival coinciding fortuitously, although Henry’s was far more impressive for he had moved his whole court there after the fall of Meaux.

  I was able to slip almost invisibly through the throng of military and baggage wagons, artillery and horseflesh, catching a glimpse of Henry in the midst, so that my heart lurched in familiar fashion at the sight of him, but I knew better than to approach. Henry was more amenable when things were done on his own terms.

  For a moment I simply looked, held fast in fascination. He was listening to one of his captains, then pointed and issued an order. Another captain claimed his attention before marching off to carry out some instruction. I grimaced silently then left him to his arrangements.

  See what an amenable wife you are becoming. Perhaps one day he will actually love you if you efface yourself enough and jump to obey.

  I shook my head and settled myself with John in one of the audience chambers, and was delighted when James of Scotland found his way to join us, with all the pleasure of reunion and a cup of wine. As lively as I remembered him, his curly hair still rioting, he had grown, in height and breadth and in confidence.

  ‘We have missed you,’ I told him.

  ‘I enjoy soldiering,’ he announced.

  ‘Good. Are you better at it than writing verses?’

  He laughed. ‘I can’t help it if you do not recognise the hand of a master.’ Then: ‘How is Joan?’

  ‘Languishing in London.’ And I told him of her, yet all the time my senses stretched for the sound of Henry’s footsteps, every muscle tensing when I finally heard them.

  Henry walked into the room, bringing with him all the authority and regal bearing I recalled from the past. Assured, proud, supremely powerful: that was the Henry I remembered. And I stood there, wishing John and James would leave us alone together, terrified that they would. Eleven months since I had last seen him, and I had only spent a little longer than that with him as his wife. Even that had been interrupted by siege and royal progresses. Now, in the wake of such distancing, I was seized by terrible uncertainty. Predictably, my confidence drained away as he strode in, his eyes taking in every detail of who was there to meet with him. They moved to me, then over my face to John and James.

  Keeping my own face carefully welcoming, I watched his expression, searching for pleasure or disinterest. Or—my belly clenched—would he castigate me for disobeying his express order to remain in England? All I could do was to sink down into a deep obeisance. I was here. I would not retreat. I rose to my full height, spine firm. Henry and John embraced, smiling, exchanging words of greeting. He clipped James on the shoulder in warm acknowledgement.

  Henry walked slowly to where I stood. I said, before he could speak to me, to forestall any reprimand, foolishly, as a child might, ‘I persuaded John to bring me.’

  Henry’s reply was light and cool. ‘You shouldn’t have come. And he should have known better.’

  ‘I wanted to see you. It is well nigh a year since…’ I said precisely. And then my mind was seized by something quite different. Fear of rejection was wiped entirely from my thoughts.

  ‘There were no dangers, Hal,’ his brother interposed. ‘We travelled via Rouen—the peace seems to be holding there.’

  ‘It is, thank God.’

  Now, at last, Henry took my hands in his and, with a strained smile, saluted my cheeks.

  ‘You look well, Katherine.’

  And you don’t look well at all.

  I stopped myself from saying it, but the impulse was strong. He looked immensely tired, the lines at the corners of his eyes a mesh of crow’s feet, his skin pulled taut over cheekbone and jaw, and a line between his brows did not smooth away, even when he smiled at me at last. I thought he had lost weight. Always tall and slender rather than heavily muscled, his frame could ill-afford to lose flesh. His hands around mine looked as finely boned as a woman’s.

  ‘We got tired of waiting,’ explained John, and when Henry turned his head to respond I was horrified by the translucence of his skin at his temple. He looked stretched and weary to the bone, with an uncomfortable pallor beneath his campaigning bronze.

  He kept hold of my hands. ‘How is my son?’

  I dragged my mind from Henry’s appearance to reply with a smile, ‘He thrives. He is safe at home. Look—I have brought this for you.’ I released myself from his hold to draw from my sleeve a screw of parchment that I gave to him, explaining as he opened it, ‘It’s Young Henry’s. His hair will be like yours.’

  Henry smoothed his thumb over the curl of hair and, to my relief, laughed softly. ‘Thank you.’ He tucked it into his tunic.

  ‘When will you come back to England to see him?
’ I asked, before I could stop myself.

  And there was the bleak lack of emotion that I so feared. ‘I don’t know. You should know better than to ask.’

  ‘What are your plans?’ John added with the slide of an apologetic eye in my direction.

  Henry turned his head as if to reply. Took a breath. Then frowned.

  ‘Later, I think,’ he responded curtly. ‘We’ll talk later.’

  ‘Of course. Shall we share a flagon of good Bordeaux?’

  Henry shook his head. ‘In an hour. I’ll find you.’ And strode swiftly from the room. We heard him shouting for his squire to order the disposal of his baggage—and then silence. With a little shrug, James followed him.

  John and I looked at each other.

  ‘He worries me,’ I said simply.

  ‘He is weary. Long campaigns—particularly sieges—take it out of the best of soldiers. A rest will restore his good humour.’

  I thought that Henry had little humour at the best of times. ‘I thought he looked ill.’

  ‘Lack of food, lack of sleep, that’s all.’

  That was what Alice had said. I supposed she was right.

  ‘He was pleased to see you.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘It will all work out well. You’ll see. Give him time to settle in here. His victory at Meaux was a great one but draining. Sieges always are. Give him time.’

  I was not convinced, and thought that John’s repetitions were an attempt to allay his own fears. I walked in front of him from the room so that he would not see the threat of tears.

  When we met for supper Henry seemed much restored, although he only picked at the dishes and drank little. He left us before the end without explanation or excuse. In nervous anticipation I sat in my sheets, trembling, my hair loose and gleaming, as seductive as any bride, but Henry did not come. I had been so sure that he would. I thought the need to converse with me about Young Henry, even to take the necessary steps to produce another son, would be important, but he did not come. All my tentative hopes for our reconciliation after so long a time were dashed, ground like shells into sand under the unstoppable onslaught of the sea.