There they were – a dozen of them, walking under the lime alley, led by a tall young man with the tiny, spry, black-eyed Yolande of Aragon on his arm. Catherine recognised the big thick-set man just behind, the one with the broken nose, as Count Bernard of Armagnac. They were all wearing respectful black; all elegant with an undefinable foreign grace. She just couldn’t see Charles.
She shaded her eyes and kept walking, expecting the features of one of the indeterminate figures moving towards her under the trees to resolve itself into Charles’ fragile little face, with its freckles and baby skin and blue eyes. When she finally realised he must be the tall young man with Yolande of Aragon – thin as a rake, with big ankles and knees and wrists, and his skin browner and harder than she remembered, with his facial features altered and lengthened and roughened by manhood and a giant Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, though still with the solemn blue eyes she remembered – she nearly laughed with the sheer relief of it.
‘Look,’ she said excitedly to her father and mother, ‘that’s Charles – and look how he’s grown!’
And she flitted off ahead, kicking up her heels, feeling everything coming right at last, with the sun on her back, laughing out loud as she ran towards him.
She could see them lift their heads to watch her.
She thought Charles might see her and come running to meet her. But he didn’t. He stood stock-still, staring.
Still flying over the flagstones, her face full of delight, Catherine felt a prickle of apprehension, as if by showing her pleasure at seeing her brother she’d broken some unknown rule of etiquette.
Was she … should she have …?
It was too late to change anything. She reached the Provencal group; rushed past them with little nods and bows; and came to a breathless halt in front of Charles.
She’d meant to hug him and whirl him round until he squealed with laughter. She was longing to hear his laughter. But the cautious look she caught in those owlish eyes made her realise she shouldn’t do anything to dent his new adult dignity. He hadn’t let go of Yolande of Aragon’s arm; he clearly didn’t want any whirling. So instead she put her hands on his shoulders, smiled as joyously as she dared, given the frigid correctness of this group of strangers, and bent decorously forward to kiss him on each cheek.
‘Sister,’ he said, and bowed, and smiled. But she didn’t detect any real pleasure in his face.
She thought: ‘He’s feeling shy.’
Then she thought: ‘He looks almost – angry.’
The walk helped dissipate some of the tensions. After Charles had bowed frigidly to his parents, who hung back looking wary, he paired off with Catherine. Yolande of Aragon moved graciously back to take Count Bernard’s arm. The King and Queen, both clearly relieved that Catherine was going first with her brother, who’d become so tall and such a stranger, walked with them. The retinue streamed behind.
Catherine slipped her arm into that of this new, near-adult Charles; felt the awkward stiffness of his muscles under the thick doublet. She was trying not to be disappointed. A voice in her head was telling her: It will all take time; it’s been two years; we all have to get used to each other again.
And it felt for a while as though it was happening. As Catherine peppered the stranger Charles with questions about his journey, his answers gradually grew from monosyllables to, at least, polite chit-chat. In a pause between questions, he even glanced sideways at her, and volunteered, in his new, deep, unnatural-seeming man’s voice: ‘I wouldn’t have recognised you, you know …’
That startled her. ‘I haven’t changed, have I?’ she said, a little uncertainly. She hadn’t had much time these last months to think about her appearance; but she was pleased, at least, that he was taking this personal tone.
He nodded. ‘You look so serious. Your face is thinner.’ He laughed, but not the laugh she’d dreamed of; instead a distant, short bark. ‘You seem older.’
She didn’t know how to take that as a compliment; but she nodded her head, a little sadly, accepting it was probably true. ‘It’s been a difficult time,’ she said. ‘It hasn’t been easy with Papa …’
He nodded, and looked properly at her; and she saw a spark of life, maybe even of understanding, in his face. But she didn’t want to talk to him yet about their father, so she added, more brightly: ‘I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you again,’ and squeezed his arm. She was encouraged to see a reluctant smile turn the corners of his mouth up.
Trying once again to reawaken the natural, free-talking, hushed conspiracy of children, she whispered: ‘So, tell me, what’s it like to be married? Is Marie of Anjou still so grand?’
For a second, he almost relaxed; almost giggled. They’d laughed so much together at Marie of Anjou’s haughtily turned-up nose before; how could he not? But she felt him stop himself. ‘She’s a good wife,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’m blessed in my new life.’
Abruptly, he turned his head back to add a word or two to the conversation between Bernard of Armagnac and his mother-in-law. Catherine saw light come to his face as he turned their way; an impish grin flickered on his lips. He looks so happy with them, she thought; not owlish at all. I don’t remember him looking like that.
Unexpectedly, she found herself full of a childish emotion far from the carefree mood she’d been trying to foster. She felt left out. Charles had found a new family; he loved them most now. He knew marriage; whereas perhaps she never would. Disconsolately, she thought: No one even thinks of marrying me to anyone any more; and I couldn’t go away and leave Papa even if they did …
Knowing this feeling to be illogical, Catherine put it aside. She was the one who refused to discuss marriage, after all; who’d pursed her lips and hurried about her business whenever Christine had begun musing, apparently innocently, on the charms and talents of one young prince or another, trying to draw her out. Christine’s inability to stop harping on about marriageable young men and the virtues of the married state, however often Catherine discouraged her, whether gently (‘There’ll be time enough after the war’) or, occasionally, brusquely (‘Haven’t we got enough on our hands already with Papa?’) was the real reason Catherine had not asked her to come to Vincennes for this family meeting. She knew Christine must have been quietly disappointed to be left behind in Paris. She guessed Christine would have loved to be one of the first to see Charles. And she respected Christine for being too proud to try and invite herself. Christine had self-control when it mattered.
In Christine’s honour, she touched Charles’ arm and murmured: ‘Christine sends you her love …’
But she could tell, from the second too long that he took to turn back to her, that when he did his face would again be set in its polite, tense, reluctant expression; and that it would take much more than a walk under the trees to make the distance between her brother and herself disappear.
Catherine didn’t know if there was any truth in the rumours that the three commanders of the Queen’s honour guard at Vincennes passed their nights gambling away what were supposed to be vast fortunes and behaving improperly with her mother’s ladies-in-waiting, while Isabeau egged them all on to misbehave with her winks and cackles. There was no point in asking her mother. But she didn’t want to leave it to chance, either, with these set-faced, disapproving visitors.
So, before dinner, she called in Louis de Bosredon, a lounging, handsome, black-haired, big-boned creature, and told him, as authoritatively as she could, that the guard was to spend tonight outside the hall, and the officers were to eat at a separate table from the ladies-in-waiting.
The young commander wasn’t used to sternness. He gave her a long, lascivious look; let his eyelashes insolently caress his cheek in a blink that was nearly a wink. Finally, just when she thought she should punish him in some way for insubordination, he drawled out the polite phrase, ‘Yes, my lady,’ and swaggered off, so slowly she could see each big, bulging muscle in thigh and buttock swell and flex, to pass on her order.
She went to her rooms. She wanted to look pretty; she needed to keep her spirits up. As the women dressed her hair, she was remembering the picnic she’d once had with Charles, out there under the white towers. She’d made daisy chains. She’d take him back there tomorrow. It would all begin then.
When she suggested the picnic, over dinner, Charles only said: ‘I don’t really remember – daisy chains? – it was all a long time ago.’ But he seemed to have mellowed: he poured wine for their father; talked politely with him about the hunting. When he saw the hopeful look Catherine gave him, he agreed, equally politely, that she should take him to the picnic spot again in the morning.
So they stood, arm in arm, soon after sunrise, watching the others skitter round on horseback. There was more hunting planned for Charles’ entourage and the King. The Queen wouldn’t go out. Catherine knew it was because she could hardly bear to look at the big square red face of Bernard of Armagnac, with the tufts of ginger hair sprouting aggressively out of nose and ears. (‘So ugly!’ Isabeau had whispered, piercingly, of the crown’s closest ally last night. ‘He always was, even as a young man; and so uncouth.’) Catherine was relieved that the Queen had more tactfully explained this morning that her gout was troubling her, and that she was going to rest her legs. Isabeau was sitting on a bench, seeing off the hunting party, wrapped up in rugs despite the hot weather and not taking much notice of the southerners but at least smiling at her husband. Perhaps it was best her mother kept herself apart. Catherine was cheered to see this meeting doing her father good. Up on his horse, with roses in his cheeks and the wind ruffling his hair, he looked almost the big blond laughing giant she remembered. The guardsmen riding with Yolande of Aragon and Bernard of Armagnac were treating him with extreme respect. He was smiling. She waved at him.
There was a clatter of other hoofs at the gate. She looked up. So did Charles.
Three horsemen spurred their horses back into a gallop as they rushed in through the gate tower and towards the castle. The horses were sweating and rolling-eyed from hard exercise. With a prickle of dislike, she recognised the rider in front as the muscle-bound young commander of the Queen’s troop who’d flickered his eyelashes so impertinently at her yesterday.
Louis de Bosredon, she remembered.
He was clearly in a hurry to get to the castle first; they must have been racing through the woods. They were whooping and whipping on their horses. Bosredon was sweating and grinning.
The trio of flicking, wild-eyed, noisy, laughing young men came right up to the little cavalcade preparing to go hunting, and galloped past. Unsettled, the hunting party’s horses began to plunge and snort. Catherine didn’t think the riders, now disappearing towards the stables, had even been aware of whom they’d passed. Guard commanders should dismount whenever they saw the King. But these ones hadn’t even taken off their hats.
Catherine pursed her lips, feeling vaguely shocked. But her father didn’t seem to have noticed the disrespect; he was leaning over his horse’s neck, murmuring something calming in its ear. He was still smiling. And the Queen, who didn’t give a hoot for discipline as long as people were having fun, couldn’t care less, Catherine saw, letting herself feel relieved. Isabeau was grinning fondly after them. She’d probably shrug and grunt, ‘Ah, those rrrap-scallions,’ in a moment, and the incident would be forgotten.
But then Catherine looked round and saw the faces of the rest of the party, and went cold.
Charles was standing very still, but she could see he was bursting with anger. White-faced; thin-lipped; with bluish flecks down the side of his nose. He stepped away from her. When she looked down, she saw he was clenching and unclenching his fists.
Catherine had never seen this anger in him.
Yolande of Aragon was also staring after the vanished riders. Her little face, usually merry with court politeness and elegant jokes, was wiped of expression. She seemed deeply shocked. She sidled her obedient horse over to Bernard of Armagnac, whose always red face had gone almost purple under his orange hair, and whose eyes were bulging out of his head. She whispered. Then he kicked his horse and skittered over to Charles. He leaned down and whispered in Charles’ ear.
Charles nodded. He turned to Catherine. She quailed at the look in his eye.
‘What is that man’s name?’ he said; and there was ice in his voice.
She muttered: ‘Bosredon.’ Then, putting a hand pleadingly on his arm, ‘But, Charles, he meant no harm …’ Then, when Charles looked at her with the full bleakness of midwinter in his gaze, ‘… it was wrong … I know … I’ll make sure he’s disciplined.’
Charles wasn’t listening. He moved a step away, turning his shoulder to her, so her hand fell off his arm. He beckoned to Armagnac’s guards. Four of them trotted up, bareheaded, blank-faced, bowing.
‘Arrest those men,’ he said.
There was a terrible inevitability about everything that followed. The initial exchange between Charles and his mother had Isabeau, from her nest of blankets, fixing her son with her most baleful, terrifying look, and hissing, ‘You impudent boy – you haven’t changed a bit – call them off at once – how dare you lay a finger on my guard!’ Charles had looked a scared boy again for a moment. But then he’d glanced at the immobile figures of Yolande and Bernard. Seeming to draw comfort from them, he’d advanced on her, taut as a whiplash, until he was standing right over her, leaning on the back of her bench, with his eyes glaring so wide that the rims stood out pink and hateful all around, his voice grinding out:
‘It’s all true, isn’t it? You vile, vicious old whore. You …’
He stopped himself. Shaking his head, he turned his back on all of them and walked after his guardsmen into the castle.
Catherine could see his head, going on shaking until he was far away; as if he were continuing a furious row with his mother in his mind.
Nestling into her blankets, Isabeau was shaking her head too, but enjoyably, with the gloating look on her face that Catherine remembered of old. It was a look that suggested that, now she’d goaded one of her children into behaving badly, she would take pleasure in dissecting his misbehaviour and bad character with her friends, and soliciting the sympathetic remarks about how much she’d suffered bringing up the ungrateful wretch, which she would then, later, repeat to the misbehaving child in question, as part of his punishment.
Catherine closed her eyes, feeling the old dread seep through her, and a new dread too.
Her mother didn’t even seem to have noticed the closed faces and stillness of the southerners watching her, as she opened her mouth and began, in significant, sepulchral tones, ‘Well … nothing changes, does it … the same old evil temper as ever … the troubles we’ve had with that boy …’
‘Madame,’ Bernard of Armagnac interrupted brusquely. Catherine opened her eyes again. The Count was all puffed up and ginger and angry himself. For the first time she saw the brute as well as the buffoon in him, the strength and pent-up rage in those bulging limbs; and she was frightened.
But all Armagnac said was: ‘We’ll hunt later; we must attend our master now. Sire …’
And, bowing to the King, he turned his horse and walked it, with dignity, back to the stables, with Yolande of Aragon picking her way behind him and the remainder of the guard following in pairs.
Catherine didn’t know what to do. For a long moment she did nothing – just felt the sun on her back, and thought of the daisy chains she’d been going to make, and felt paralysed.
But then she caught sight of her father’s bewildered face. She pulled herself together. She smiled, too big and false a s
mile; the kind that would make your face ache if you kept it up for too long. ‘Don’t worry, Papa,’ she said, too brightly; ‘you go inside with Maman; she’s got a new card game she wants to teach you. You can hunt in the afternoon. I’ll go and find Charles now.’ And, giving her mother a fierce warning look – mouthing Don’t upset him when she thought her father wouldn’t see, and trying not to be alarmed by the truculence in her mother’s answering glance – she followed the southerners, on foot, over the grass and flags to the stables.
His face was all crusting blood and puff and angry blue-red swellings. One eye was closed. There was fresh blood trickling out of his mouth. Even when Catherine’s eyes had adjusted to the hay-barn dusk, it took her a moment to understand what she was seeing.
They’d put a leather strap round Bosredon’s neck and half-hung him from a hook on the wall. He could hardly stand, in the state he was in, but a precarious foothold on a broken cartwheel was all that was keeping him from strangling. Strange gurgling noises were coming from him.
There was no sign of Yolande of Aragon. But Bernard of Armagnac was striding up and down, up and down, very fast, very angry, in front of the four motionless men-at-arms. He was dishevelled; so were they; but they were still correct.
It was Charles, with the wooden stick in his hand, who wasn’t. Charles, in a rage she’d never seen, with flared nostrils and narrowed eyes and the white of hate burning in him like pale fire. Charles had blood and snot all down him. Charles had his doublet off and was stripped down to his linen shirt. Charles was administering the blows; vicious, regular blows to elbow and knee and foot, at the end of every question; as if the questions themselves weren’t an assault.
‘They take off their clothes …’ whack – arm – silence.
‘They get on the tabletops …’ whack – leg – silence.
‘They dance for you …’ whack – ankle – groan.
Blood Royal Page 16
