Blood Royal

by Vanora Bennett

  Christine broke the news gently, saying ‘We must be strong’ and ‘… a great sorrow.’ But it did no good. A moment before, her father had been sitting with them at the table, and saying, earnestly, sadly, but almost sanely, ‘You’re the only people I can talk to; you’re the only ones who understand; I’m in a nightmare I can’t wake up from, and I can’t get help; but you’re here with me … and that’s a comfort …’ Now, suddenly, he drew himself out of Christine’s embrace and flew across the room, back to the safety of his window perch, from where he stared out of the window. ‘The ravens are there,’ he said conversationally. ‘Look. Pecking out our eyes.’

  It was April when the next royal brother to have been heir to the throne died. Jean. He’d been a creature of the Duke of Burgundy, whose niece he’d married. He hadn’t come back to Paris since becoming crown prince. He’d been kept away by Burgundy. He’d been Catherine’s blood; but again she hadn’t known him. Catherine let the rumours – a fever? Poisoned by her mother, or by the southern Armagnac princes who knew poisons? – wash over her. She felt remote. Her tears wouldn’t come.

  The thought that came into her head this time was a flash of sunlight. Jean’s death meant that Charles – her little brother, who’d once been her dearest friend – would be crown prince; would soon come back to Paris. Charles was anything but the creature of the terrifying Duke of Burgundy. He hated Burgundy as utterly as Catherine did – beyond reason, beyond logic – the older cousin, as thin as death, whose hooded eyes and paper-thin skin and cold, cold voice had haunted their every childhood nightmare. Charles had been growing up as far from Burgundy as possible, in the heart of the Armagnac south: he was a model prince for a France that might finally shake off the Duke’s stranglehold. Charles’ closeness to the Armagnac faction was reassuring, but it wasn’t what made Catherine happiest when she thought of the brother whom fate was bringing back to her. The older, quieter, more capable young woman who came out of the white room nowadays wanted nothing more than her childhood friend; a chance to be a girl again, and to be reunited with the brother she’d always been able to talk with.

  ‘Don’t cry; don’t cry,’ Catherine muttered at her father’s hunched shoulders, wondering where her own tears had gone. ‘Charles will come home now to be crown prince. Little Charlot.’

  And somehow she made her voice so encouraging, so loving, so full of hope, that her father, who was himself that day – not made of glass, or blighted by a black sun, just sobbing in anguish at the death of his sons – looked up and gave her a watery smile.

  THREE

  Charles wriggled in his splendid black velvet, and turned to his mother-in-law, Yolande of Aragon, for reassurance. The new Crown Prince of France – the Dauphin, who also bore the title of Duke of Aquitaine, for those vast tracts of southern France that Henry of England wanted for himself – had grown used to the sophistication of southern clothes in his time away; the elegant ways of troubadour castles. He was missing the lovely safety of the scent of wild garlic and rosemary in his nostrils. It was making him deeply uneasy to be back here, at the chateau of Vincennes, outside Paris, where his mother had established her court, about to meet his real parents again. It was raining. The peasant cottages outside had soaking straw roofs. He smelled mud and fear wherever he turned. His stomach churned darkly; feeling full of ground glass.

  Yolande screwed up her pretty dark monkey-face into a comforting grimace. It almost made him laugh. You’d never guess from that wry expression that she’d had the strength of purpose to write energetically back, as soon as she’d got the order from the Queen to release Charles to the court, and Paris, saying she had no intention of letting a youth who’d become her son go back to the hell of the north for good. ‘What, let you be poisoned, or die of plague, or neglect?’ she’d said, with her lisping Spanish intonation, half-indignant, half-laughing. ‘Let you fall into that woman’s clutches? Thertainly not!’

  So she’d come north too, even before her year’s mourning for her husband, the Duke of Anjou, was up, bringing the powerful, pug-faced Count Bernard of Armagnac, her closest ally, to accompany Charles and Marie, his wife. They’d agreed among themselves that Charles would go back to the south, or at the very least to Angers, Yolande’s home in the Loire Valley, as soon as was feasible.

  Charles had discovered a great many things since he’d got away. He knew now that his father was mad. How that felt or looked or sounded or smelled he couldn’t imagine; all he remembered of his father were rare, happy walks in the garden with a big, laughing, easygoing man who flung Charles in the air and carved him little flutes out of twigs. When he imagined his father mad, it was, nowadays, with the big fleshy drunk face of the Count of Armagnac. It was Armagnac’s pleasure to stretch his eyes wide, so they looked crazy, and pull them down at the corners, so the red rims showed. He’d let his mouth flap foolishly underneath, make his hair and clothes rumpled and wild, and complete his impersonation by howling, ‘Woo – wooo – WOOOH!’ and running round the room. Charles would cringe with embarrassed horror at the thought of his father losing his royal dignity and turning into that wild animal. If Charles couldn’t understand what his father must be like mad, he did understand it was bad for France, and that only a new king – the man he was now destined to become – could save the land from the English and from his uncle of Burgundy. When news of his brother’s death had reached him, on a visit to Yolande at Angers, Armagnac had been breathless with excitement – even during the solemn Mass said for Jean – and, afterwards, downing his favourite Gascon wine, had clapped him on the back, over and over again, saying, ‘We’re all in your hands now, my boy; all in your hands.’

  Charles had also discovered, and also mostly from Bernard of Armagnac, that his mother was evil. That, he had no trouble putting mental pictures to. He had so many painful memories from his early life: of going hungry when Odette the cook walked out tearfully because she hadn’t been given any wages for the three months since the King had been ill, and had eventually run out of savings. He remembered being told he must have stolen all the sweets, when he’d been nowhere near; when it must have been his mother who’d eaten them. He remembered not having clothes to put on his back, and not having anyone to dress him. He remembered knocking on his mother’s door, and being turned away. ‘Go and play in the gardens,’ he remembered the Saracen saying; ‘your mother’s busy,’ and no one noticing he had only a ragged shirt on his back, and it was raining.

  With the hindsight offered by his new fifteen-year-old life, these memories had come to the fore. They’d got mixed up with the whispers and snickers of the southern courtiers; the vicious stories Bernard of Armagnac told in his cups about the Queen’s sluts of ladies-in-waiting, getting drunk at dinner and stripping for the guard commanders, while their fat old mistress cackled and cheered them on. They were stories he was too embarrassed, still, to repeat himself, but couldn’t entirely doubt. Not to mention the angrier talk about the thousands and thousands of livres she’d spent on her pleasures; the muttered judgements that she, singlehandedly, had all but destroyed France; that she was even more dangerous than Burgundy. Charles had almost forgotten the other nightmares, the dreams that had so troubled him while he was still a child in Paris, in which wild-eyed butchers with axes chased him up and down the palace corridors; or in which the hard, cold eyes and eagle nose of his uncle of Burgundy stared at him in wordless fury as a flash of steel hissed down at him. They had receded, and blended themselves into the all-encompassing fury he felt towards his mother.

  When he thought of before, what he remembered best was always feeling guilty. It came back to him now, with a surge of seething, hateful resentment: back then, he’d always thought it must be his fault; that he and Catherine must somehow have done something naughty; that they were being punished. He remembered his mother’s voice: ‘No, it was the green one you were given,’ when he knew there’d never been a green one, only the blue one, and that was in her hand, and she wasn’t going to give it to hi
m. Her voice, accusing: ‘You had the green one, and you’ve deliberately hidden it.’ Or lost it, or broken it. The beatings, for the made-up wrongs he hadn’t done. He knew better now, though, than to still feel guilty. He knew, with a fierce, implacable rage, which had been stoked by every bitter flash of memory that he’d ever had, in the sunny, luxuriously feather-bedded existence he’d been delivered to, that all those childish guilts had been mistaken; that he’d never done anything wrong. That it was his mother, with her angry rolls of fat and the dark whiskers quivering on her chin and the malevolent eyes, who was to blame for everything.

  He knew he had to make an appearance here; for form’s sake. But he didn’t want to see his pathetic, mad, broken father, who they said had been locked away, raving, practically since he’d left; and he certainly didn’t want to see her.

  ‘Your father’s already arrived from Paris, with your sister Catherine,’ Yolande whispered, and her eyes flashed encouragement. ‘They say he’s in good health; and you’ll be happy to see her again.’

  Dutifully, Charles nodded; but he wasn’t even sure of that. There’d been a time when Catherine had been his only protector; of course there had; he’d relied on her utterly. They’d spied on council meetings from behind the arras; they’d foraged for food in their mother’s kitchens; they’d begged Christine to bring them picnics. But now – when he’d found so much rock-solid love in his new world – he could hardly remember his sister. She’d just been another ragged child with her eyes full of anxieties and guilt and fears. He didn’t want to feel those things again. He wanted to get away.

  Catherine looked calmly down at her mother – who hadn’t got up; who never got up if she could avoid it. The Queen was as magnificently dressed and jewel-studded as ever, and, as ever, had a light dusting of sugar down her front. Catherine wasn’t entirely surprised to feel a reluctant stirring of love for her. She knew it would only be a moment before her mother would be digging fingers into a bowl again; mumbling, ‘dragees; very good; try,’ and twinkling conspiratorially at her. She found herself even looking forward to the predictability of it. She might forget you if you were out of sight; she might accuse you of stealing things she’d lost, or of knowing about things she’d never told you, or of plotting to keep her from things you’d never thought of for yourself, but you could rely on Isabeau to be sweet with you if you were in the room with her when she was in a good mood. You might share a pleasure; have a mischievous laugh together; and God knew there were few enough pleasures these days. No wonder the Queen sat here all day, eating and dreaming.

  Catherine’s peace of mind today came from the knowledge that enough time had gone by to make a difficult conversation about the past unnecessary. They both knew now that Catherine looked after the King; they both knew she must know everything. But caring for her father had changed Catherine. She had decided, when broaching a meeting of the family at Vincennes, that she didn’t want to risk making her mother angry, or open more Pandora’s boxes and let more demons out. There were enough in the air as it was. She’d let the past be. She needed to concentrate on today – to scotch the talk that had taken hold that the King and Queen lived irreconcilably apart; that the King’s madness was permanent; that a weak fifth son was coming into a divided, ruined kingdom.

  It hadn’t been easy to persuade Isabeau to let the rest of the family join her here at first.

  ‘Charles coming back north is an opportunity for all of us,’ Catherine told her mother, when she rode to Vincennes to discuss it. ‘We can show that our family is strong and united … make Papa feel secure … give Charles a good enough welcome to encourage him to stay permanently in Paris.’

  Her mother pursed up her lips and looked sceptical. Her fingers were feeling along the tabletop. Catherine pushed the sweet bowl closer.

  ‘We need Charles here,’ Catherine said. ‘We need a good king-in-waiting. Papa will never be strong enough. You and Papa need to greet Charles together. You and Papa need to live in the same place.’

  She didn’t try to explain. She shouldn’t have to. Isabeau must see that it was her duty to be near her husband. But the Queen just gazed expressionlessly at her daughter.

  ‘Huh,’ Isabeau grunted in the end. ‘I suppose you know he attacks me … whenever he’s like that. Tried to strangle me once. Not safe for me to go near. Hasn’t been for years.’

  She didn’t sound upset, or frightened; she sounded glib, as though she was making an excuse to get out of an unwanted social engagement.

  Catherine pushed every angry response out of her head.

  ‘Papa’s not mad now,’ she said firmly. ‘He’s fragile; but he’s sane. He talks about you. Misses you.’

  Whenever Catherine felt angry with her mother, which was often, she tried to call to mind the explanation she’d come up with over the past year or so for all Isabeau’s excesses. It was too simple, Catherine had decided, to believe the Queen had deliberately brought darkness on the royal house of France – although most people did say something of the sort. Catherine’s own, kinder conclusion was that almost everything about her mother could be explained by her terror of poverty. She knew Isabeau of Bavaria had come to France with none of the financial provision for her old age that usually formed part of a royal marriage contract; her family had been too delighted to get the glittering marriage to the French King to make too many conditions. So Isabeau had suddenly become queen of what she liked to wave her hand and call ‘all this’ – but ‘all this’ would be snatched away without warning if the King died. And King Charles’ illness must have been a perpetual reminder that she might at any moment end up a widow, and a penniless one too. That explained why Isabeau couldn’t look at the poor – why she turned away from beggars in disgust; hid behind her fan or shawl; wouldn’t give alms. It explained why she’d always squirrelled away the little gold treasures she liked to be given, and stole, magpie-fashion, when she wasn’t given them, getting baubles sewn into curtains, or packed into false linings in trunks, or bagged up in cubbyholes in stables, ready for escape.

  Once the King and Queen were back together, Catherine thought, she’d ask her father to settle a proper dower on her mother. That might be enough to keep the Queen out of politics; stop her trying to fight Charles over money and influence as she had Louis. For now, Catherine reminded herself, if her mother couldn’t resist helping herself to things, perhaps it wasn’t entirely her fault. For all the vast bulk of her, the wrinkles, the whiskers, her mother was, in some ways, still a child in the grip of a nightmare. If she couldn’t deny her appetites, it was because they were signs of her fears. The important thing was to calm her mother’s fears; then she would, possibly, behave with the public-spiritedness expected of a queen.

  ‘Papa was saying only the other day that it was time he settled a proper dower on you,’ she murmured.

  Isabeau sat quietly, sucking on a sweet, nodding her head. She didn’t acknowledge the comment, but Catherine could tell she’d heard.

  ‘You’re the key to everything,’ Catherine said. ‘Please, Maman – say you’ll try; make this meeting a success.’

  Isabeau’s answer, when it came, was casual. ‘Ach, you know I’ll do whatever I can,’ she said, swallowing her morsel. ‘Anything, if it brings us all together again – and banishes that scum John of Burgundy back to where he belongs. If ever I saw true evil, it’s in that man. Those eyes, full of darkness. The Destroyer, that’s what he is. We all know where he should be. In Hell.’

  She snapped her lips shut; but her eyes went on flashing with the memory of her enemy.

  However, once she’d helped herself to another sweet, Isabeau turned affectionate. ‘And of course I’m delighted we’re all to be reunited – me, you, Papa, and dear, pudgy little Charlot, with his fingers always in the sweet bowl …’

  For an exasperated second, Catherine wondered if her mother remembered, or had ever even realised that she and her brother had spent most of their childhood stealing food because Isabeau hadn’t bothered
to make sure they were properly looked after. She took a deep breath in, determined not to let herself feel any irritation. There was too much at stake today.

  Isabeau sighed sentimentally, and caught Catherine’s eye. Catherine made a point of smiling. ‘You know, of all my children, I think you two were always my favourites…. So pretty … so adorable … and so happy together … What a joy that those days are coming back.’

  Catherine’s father, blinking in his old mild astonishment and looking round in the sunlight, had not left her mother’s side since they’d met in the gallery. Isabeau had heaved herself to her feet and put her arm affectionately around the husband she hadn’t seen for a year. Now she was whispering into his ear and twinkling. Catherine could hardly believe how overjoyed the old man was looking; how well her mother was behaving; how her own heart was bursting with hope.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she said gently to her father. She’d arranged for Charles and his followers to meet them in the gardens; she thought birdsong and green leaf-light would lighten everyone’s mood.

  She wanted everything to be as relaxed as possible for the meeting with Charles. She’d heard about the hostile letter his mother-in-law had written to Isabeau; she knew his southern family were suspicious. He must be frightened; he must have spent the two years since he’d left Paris expecting a peaceful future in the south, not to be forced to lead France out of its wars. Charles was timid by nature; she remembered his nightmares. And he was just fifteen. She wanted to reassure him.

  There was so much to hope for; but what was making her heart beat fastest, as they stepped out through the flowers, was simply the prospect of seeing his face again.