Blood Royal

by Vanora Bennett

  Hesitantly, he began: ‘Not as magnificent as this … and London isn’t a quarter the size of Paris.’ His head cleared. Suddenly he knew what might appeal to someone brought up in times as uncertain as those Catherine had known here – times, he thought, with sudden understanding, that had perhaps been almost as uncertain as those he’d known, in a different way. He’d tell her what had appealed to him about coming to England – it had been exactly the same thing. He went on, with greater confidence: ‘But it’s very orderly. Dignified. Decorous. Calm. The King and his brothers and his three Beaufort uncles rule together, wisely and in perfect unison … and the people love them all.’

  She was nodding now; looking thoughtful; wistful even. He’d been right. She was impressed by that.

  Louder, because it would be foolhardy to expect Christine not to come out of her reverie sooner or later, and seriously, because he wanted the pleasure of watching Catherine’s lips move and eyes dance and neck sway as she considered her reply, he asked: ‘And what about here? The French court … what’s that like?’

  She thought. Her forehead wrinkled enchantingly.

  But it was Charles who, turning away from the lion at last, broke in with an answer. ‘Dancing and debauchery!’ he shouted, throwing out both arms as if taunting a mob.

  Catherine laughed, a little uneasily. ‘He doesn’t know what it means,’ she told Owain. ‘It’s just something they were shouting in the street … last year … when there was …’ Then, as Owain’s startled look sank in, she turned crossly to her little brother and reprimanded him: ‘You mustn’t say that! I’ve told you so many times!’

  ‘I do know what it means. There was a ball here once when four men dressed up as hairy savages,’ Charles piped up stubbornly. ‘They were supposed to jump out and scare the ladies. But their costumes caught fire on a torch, and two of them burned to death before everyone’s eyes,’ he added with ghoulish relish. ‘You can imagine the screaming.’

  ‘Did that really happen?’ Owain couldn’t help asking. You never knew, here. Perhaps it had. ‘Were you there?’

  With something like regret, the little voice replied: ‘No … before I was born.’ And the pinched, freckled boy’s face clouded.

  Catherine said: ‘But I went to the Court of Love once … my uncle’s idea … the Duke of Orleans …’

  She dimpled at Owain.

  He softened: ‘And what was that?’ he asked.

  ‘A kind of repeating ball. No, more than that: an idea, a place where people could meet – the officers of the Court of Love – and talk about chivalry, judge cases of unhappy love, and learn how to be true lovers themselves …’ she said, being careful with her words. He could see she remembered it with affection.

  ‘And everyone wore beautiful clothes, too,’ she added, with childlike regret; ‘we don’t have anything like that any more … not since …’

  Charles said: ‘… my uncle was murdered.’ There was ghoulish pleasure in his eyes.

  There was a rush of air behind them. All three young people froze, as if they’d been caught doing something terribly wrong. Christine had come to herself. With a whisk of bony elbows, she broke into their little circle, clearly annoyed at the way the conversation was going. ‘You were three at the Court of Love,’ she said sharply to Catherine. ‘And he’s been dead for seven years. If there’s nothing like that now, then there’s no reason to talk about it any more, either. It might well have done us all more good if there’d been less idle talk about chivalry back then, and more sensible thought about real life.’

  She put a determined arm through Owain’s. Looking sideways as he was pulled away from Catherine’s side, their eyes met again; another shared look full of quiet laughter and delight.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ Christine said, pointing at the long shadows. She tried to keep her voice strict, but she couldn’t help sounding relieved. She’d never brought anyone here with her, except Anastaise and her own Jean, who hardly counted, to meet these children. She’d always been afraid that Catherine and Charles might turn silent; stare; run away like deer into the woods. But this day had gone so easily. They’d loved the Welsh boy. She’d wanted them to. She admired him herself: she liked the way he’d found through adversity – the questions, the bright eyes, the unquenched hope. He was already bringing the younger children out of their quiet little selves; he was getting them to talk. Christine was pleased with her experiment.

  Catherine bowed her head. ‘Will you come back tomorrow?’ she asked submissively, going up to Christine to kiss her cheeks, and, perhaps by accident, almost brushing Owain’s arm as she passed. ‘We have so many books – hundreds of them, the most beautiful in the world. You’re allowed into the library anyway, Christine, but what about …’ She dimpled over at Owain, plucking up courage. ‘He’d like to see them too, wouldn’t he? … Will you bring Owain?’

  The air was cool and dusty in the hush of this room. The library walls were lined with treasures in jewelled calf bindings. Owain couldn’t bear even to look at his guide, though he was dimly aware, through the thunderous beating of his heart, that beside him Catherine’s cheeks were flushed from the heaviness of the grown-up green velvet houppelande she was wearing again, and that there were tiny, wilting flowers scattered through the loose weave of her veil.

  ‘Show him the beautiful Consolations of Philosophy,’ Christine was whispering excitedly to Catherine. ‘And your grandfather’s book of hours … this was the old King’s library, once, Owain.’

  Only Charles, reluctantly bringing up the rear, was spoiling the mood. He was scuffing his feet and looking mutinous, and a stream of unending childish complaints were coming from his lips.

  ‘Let’s go and see the lions instead,’ he kept saying, just too loud for anyone else’s comfort; ‘… I don’t want to sit inside all day … it’s so hot … I don’t know why Catherine’s suddenly so interested in books; she isn’t usually … I want to climb a tree … Christine?’

  ‘Shh, darling,’ Christine kept murmuring, in that strangely gentle voice Owain had noticed her using with the little boy before; ‘let’s just stay here for a while more …’

  But eventually she sighed and gave in. ‘I’ll bring him back in an hour,’ she said to Catherine, trying to sound firm. ‘Not a minute more.’

  Charles wasn’t listening. He was pulling her out of the door.

  For a moment, Owain thought his overstretched heart would stop altogether. He had no idea at all what he’d say to Catherine; he was appalled and overjoyed at the same time by the possibility that he might spend the next hour this close to her, yet might also disgrace himself with utter, tongue-tied, childish silence. In the event, however, as soon as the footsteps died away in the corridor, leaving him alone with Catherine, but for the scribe copying something in a shaft of sunlight at the other end of the room, Owain’s wits came back to him.

  He hardly knew what he was doing. He certainly didn’t think it out before he spoke. But he found himself catching Catherine’s eye and, with a daring grin, breathing the words: ‘Do you have the Romance of the Rose here?’

  It was pure mischief to ask. The Romance, he knew, was Christine’s great hate: she called it the most immoral book in Christendom. Written more than a century earlier, in two parts, by two men, it was also one of the most famous love stories in existence. But it was only since he’d heard Christine fulminating against it that Owain had started to want to see it for himself. His understanding was that the first part was a harmless enough allegory about a Lover in the Garden of Desire, trying to get near the Rose he adores, but failing, when Jealousy raises walls all around to keep him out. It was the second half, written years later by Jean de Meun, that Christine really disliked. There were two reasons for her hate. Not only did De Meun’s Lover manage, after all, to seduce the Rose, (while ungallantly making out that women were capricious, stupid, vicious, garrulous, gullible, greedy and lascivious by nature) – but the author also made abundantly clear, through his story,
that he didn’t believe in the sanctity of the lifelong bond of marriage, as Christine did. For de Meun, there was only lust.

  Owain knew Christine had made her reputation, while still young and little known, by denouncing the book publicly, in an exchange of letters with University men which she copied to the court, and to the Queen. And Owain wanted to show Catherine, here, today, now, that he was the kind of man who knew about such things.

  For a split second, Catherine looked terrified. Then, with an answering flash of mischief, she grinned quickly back. Her lips parted slightly; her eyes went wide, as if she were considering the delicious possibilities of this act. Letting the pent-up breath he hadn’t realised he was holding gently out, he could see that she could see he knew Christine’s feelings about this book. ‘Christine would be so angry …’ she whispered, but she was already disappearing into the gloom. When she came out, she had a book in her hand.

  It was only the innocent first volume, Owain saw with disappointment when they put it on the bookstand and, standing side by side in front of it, carefully opened it, finding the first jewel-like colours of tiny lovers listening to miniature musicians strumming lutes in a cloud of roses. Still, he reasoned, that meant Christine would have less reason to be angry; perhaps he should be relieved. Perhaps he should admire Catherine’s caution.

  But then he forgot everything, except that Catherine was standing by him, so close he could feel the warmth of her shoulder against his arm, and the whole side of his body nearest to her was on quiet fire, and he could smell rose oil. Breathing softly and shallowly, Catherine stretched a finger towards the first words, as if she found it hard to make out the narrow upright script, and as she did so her arm brushed so close to his chest that it almost touched his heart. And all at once they were lost in the roses, caressing the vellum as they gently turned the pages, sighing out the words, as if to themselves, or to each other …

  Catherine turned the page. ‘Ohh,’ she murmured, scarcely more than a breath of regret; ‘there’s no more …’

  Their eyes met. There was no reason for them to go on standing so close. But Owain couldn’t turn away; couldn’t step back. For a long moment they went on looking quietly into each other’s eyes; as if they could have stayed there forever, just watching each other.

  Then Owain heard footsteps from far away in the corridor, and the querulous words: ‘… but it’s so boring inside! Can’t we have another picnic?’ and, when he recovered from the shock and looked back down towards Catherine, he realised, feeling bereft and quietly relieved at the same time, that she wasn’t by his side any more, and the book wasn’t on the stand, either.

  By the time Christine and Charles walked back in, Owain was standing in front of the bookstand, head bowed, eyes following his finger, struggling to read the first words of Boethius’ Consolations of Philosophy, translated into French; and Catherine, standing well back, with her hands clasped demurely in front of her, was listening.

  Christine, whose attention was mostly still on the fractious small boy tugging at her arm, longing to be off, looked pleased at the sight of the older ones reading. She didn’t seem to notice either the hint of a smile that kept coming to Owain’s face, or the excessively bright innocence of the sidelong glances that Catherine was flashing at her from under thick, sweeping lashes.

  So much, in the days that followed, made Owain feel as if he’d walked into a magical world of dreams come true. Without his even needing to do anything to change his life, a future he’d never have thought possible was almost settled, almost at once. Christine’s friend, Jean de Gerson, the elderly chancellor of the University of Paris (and, in the old days, her great ally in the quarrel of the Romance of the Rose), offered Owain a place to study as soon as Christine recommended him. Gerson, Owain knew, was a wise man; Gerson had thought at once of the brilliant, devious former chancellor of free Wales, Owain Glynd?r’s man, Gruffydd Young – who was now in exile in Paris – and suggested Young might be the man to vouch for Owain Tudor’s good character. Now all Owain was waiting for was for Gerson to suggest to the other canons of Notre Dame Cathedral that a bursary be found too. ‘Once you know about that,’ Christine said, leaning forward so her eyes shone in the trembling candle flame, making her voice resonate darkly and persuasively, ‘you can write to your Duke, or King, and ask to be relieved of your service for a couple of years.’

  Whenever Owain remembered the confused, dizzy happiness of the next few weeks, what came first to his mind was the heat: a scorching June, with the flagstones burning underfoot as he came out from the royal library. He was usually alone for a couple of hours in those cool rooms. Charles seemed to have been right; Catherine didn’t often want to be in the library. Later, with Catherine (and Charles, though Charles he noticed only with the kindly indifference of a grown-up man for a child) he recalled laughing breathlessly and seeking out shade and water for their picnics; and ignoring Christine’s remonstrations, and running barefoot to the fountains, dipping their toes in.

  ‘Have you ever seen someone kill someone?’ Owain heard, as he stared up at the ribbons of cloud and smelled the crushed grass under his back.

  It was Charles’ voice: thin and small and careful.

  Owain’s voice was also small and careful as – trying not to let any actual memories enter his head – he replied: ‘Yes.’

  Charles was lying beside him. The boy had quietly put himself there, in Owain’s shadow, like a smaller animal looking for protection. Catherine was sitting curled up round her knees, just behind them, plaiting grasses. Christine was picking grasses for her.

  ‘My brother tried to kill a man,’ Charles said. ‘A man in a brown leather tunic. He was one of the men who broke in last year. He ran into the ballroom where Louis was holding a ball and started shouting at him that he was a disgrace and that he shouldn’t be allowed to be king.’

  ‘Just what Maman is always saying …’ Catherine added, still braiding. They were both talking quietly, as if in a dream.

  ‘And Louis got a look on his face,’ Charles went on. ‘A horrible look. And he got out his dagger. He stabbed him three times. But the man kept shouting. He wouldn’t die, however often Louis stabbed him. The blade just got stuck in the leather. Then everyone started shouting and running around. And all the other men ran in; they were breaking windows to get at us.’

  ‘You saw all that?’ Owain said, raising himself on an elbow and looking at the boy.

  ‘I was behind the arras. We often go and watch when there’s a ball. There’s a tear in the tapestry. Sometimes the servants let us take some food there. Catherine wasn’t there that night. They let her dress up and go to the ball. So it was just me. I thought they’d kill everyone. Then find me.’

  ‘How did it end?’ Owain asked.

  ‘Our cousin of Burgundy came in. He had his own men-at-arms. He had the ones who were shouting sent out. But after he’d gone, with all his men and all the intruders, everyone who was left, the guests, were saying it was all really his fault – that he must have been behind it all – otherwise how could he have known to turn up at that moment with soldiers?’

  He shivered. So did Catherine. ‘Our cousin of Burgundy is always behind everything,’ she whispered.

  ‘You must have been scared,’ Owain murmured, keeping compassionate eyes on Charles.

  Charles shook his head and coloured up. He shrilled: ‘Princes are never afraid.’

  Owain said gently: ‘I grew up in a war. I was often scared. I was just a boy; I was helpless. Sometimes the things I saw came back to me in my dreams.’

  ‘You were scared?’ Charles said. He looked thoughtful. Then: ‘I have bad dreams.’

  Owain shook his head sympathetically. ‘Mine stayed with me for years,’ he said. ‘But give them time. They pass.’

  Charles nodded. He sat up too, a little closer to Owain. Christine, who’d said nothing during this conversation, smiled to herself and passed Catherine another piece of grass.

  There was a si
lence.

  ‘This is the happiest summer I can remember,’ Catherine murmured contentedly, lying down on the grass in the shade of a tree full of green apples and stretching herself out. ‘Even Maman and Louis aren’t quarrelling as much as usual …’

  Charles pulled himself up on his elbows, dazed and sated. He had smears of cheese around his mouth and grass in his hair. ‘Only because Maman agreed to send Marguerite away …’ he objected, but he sounded cheerful too; as if he were enjoying the argument. ‘And Papa’s still away too … ill …’

  They both looked very serious at that. They nodded solemnly at each other, like much younger children. ‘Poor Papa,’ Catherine said piously.

  Owain could feel Christine’s eyes warningly on him. He had the feeling these two didn’t know what was the matter with their father. Christine might be worried that he’d say something tactless. He kept reassuringly still. But Christine changed the subject anyway. She said, tartly: ‘And, of course, the Duke of Burgundy has called up ten thousand men, and he’s sitting in Dijon, just waiting for your mother and Louis to fall out … you shouldn’t get so carried away by a few days of hot weather that you forget that …’

  She gave them a chiding look from under the white headdress that, despite the heat, she wouldn’t take off.

  But it was too hot and light and safe here in the walled garden to care about ten thousand men in Dijon. Catherine only giggled, just a little nervously, and reached for another strawberry.

  ‘When I get married, it will be a golden day like this,’ the Princess said, biting into the fruit, looking at it. She was careful not to say whom she planned to marry. She didn’t want to annoy Christine. Owain stared at her mouth; at the glistening fruit. She knew he was looking at her. Taking another strawberry, she went on, dreamily, childishly: ‘And I’ll make Maman let me have a dress of cloth of gold, so I’ll glitter like the sun. And you’ll all be there, watching me, all three of you,’ and she flashed a beseeching look at Owain, and smiled at the soft glance she got back. ‘Won’t you?’ She ate the second strawberry. ‘And we’ll all be as happy as we are today, for ever and ever.’