Owain’s head pounded and ached the next morning – he wasn’t usually a drinker – but he was up early, and at the gate of the beguine convent at noon. Anastaise, as red-faced and barrel-bodied and hearty as ever, hugged him warmly, muttered, ‘My, how big and handsome you’ve got!’ and hurried him into the whitewashed room where pallets and travel bags were piled up against the walls, and where de Castel’s family were sitting quietly, waiting, the two children with their mother’s arms around them.
Christine – a small, tired Christine – was on a stool by the window, staring at something very far away. But she got up and smiled with real warmth when she became aware of Owain. Going to him, she kissed him on both cheeks, and, looking straight at him with her fine eyes filling with tears, she said: ‘Thank you for saving my son.’
Owain muttered something self-deprecating, then hurriedly moved on to business. He wasn’t sure whether, in the muddle of feelings he had for Christine, there was still any of the resentment he’d felt back there; but he knew he wanted her to see him doing good effectively now. ‘They say the Prince and the Armagnacs are heading for Bourges,’ he said. ‘They’ll be setting up a court of their own there. So that’s where you need to go, too.’
He didn’t tell them what this morning’s revellers at the inn had been gloating over: that the Count of Armagnac himself wouldn’t be heading for Bourges, since more mobs had broken into the prisons of Paris overnight, and Bernard of Armagnac had been torn to pieces. Charles had been lucky to escape; he’d have met the same fate if they’d caught him. The puny, nervy little boy that Owain remembered couldn’t have changed out of all recognition – he must have been terrified. For a moment, Owain felt sorry for Charles; then he wondered what Charles might do, now he was safe, to get his revenge on the Duke of Burgundy. Then he stopped himself. All Christine and the de Castels needed to know now was where to go to reach safety.
Jean nodded. Owain could see he’d already got the little bag of money that the family would need from the convent storehouse. Jean had it strapped to his belt. He’d got his resolve back now, with his family. ‘We’ve got horses arranged,’ he said briskly; ‘and I’m sure to find colleagues there. So we can set off as soon as we’re ready.’
Jean put Owain’s ten Tours livres back in his hand – a gesture of finality. ‘Thank you for this,’ he said. ‘Your horse is stabled here; they know to return it to you.’
Owain could see he couldn’t wait to be off. It would be a relief once all his family were on the road to safety.
So when Christine said, very quietly, from her window seat, ‘I’m not coming,’ they all turned to her with big shocked eyes.
‘Don’t be difficult, Maman,’ Jean said, too sharply. ‘Please. We need to get the children away.’
‘I know,’ Christine said calmly, as if, after long doubt, she’d made up her mind. ‘You have to go. I’ll see you off. But I’ll stay here.’
‘The danger,’ Jean said.
‘There’ll be no danger. Not for an old woman like me,’ she replied firmly. ‘I’ll stay here, with the beguines, till things calm down. Then we’ll see.’
She looked up at Owain. ‘And Owain can help me get to you if I need to, later …’
‘Why?’ Jean de Castel said. He wasn’t arguing. He knew it was a waste of time to try and make his mother change her mind. But he didn’t understand.
Owain thought he did. If Christine went south to Bourges with her son, to follow the Prince in setting up a court to rival the King’s, she’d have definitively taken sides. She’d have cut herself off, perhaps forever, from her daughter at Poissy, in the hinterland of Paris. That wasn’t a choice she wanted to make now. If she stayed here, even at worst, as things were now, she still had that choice ahead.
Perhaps Christine was embarrassed to explain her softer maternal feelings. All she said was, ‘It’s not right for us all to go haring off. I know you have to go, Jean; and you have to take the children. But someone needs to be here, near the house. Things might change … The Prince might come home, make his peace with his parents, as he should. And my Princess will be back here soon; and she’s going to need me.’
She sounded more decided with every word. ‘But give my regards to Prince Charles,’ she said. She’d taken to calling Charles ‘Prince’ since he’d arrested the Queen; since she’d stopped being able to think of him as a nervous child to be cosseted. ‘My warmest regards.’ She couldn’t quite say ‘love’. She knew the difference. Love was what she felt for the family she was perhaps losing.
Jean sighed. There was no arguing with Christine’s sense of honour and duty. Jehanette lifted her eyes to him and did a tiny shrug with arms still spread about her cowed children, signalling, Accept what she says; we have to go.
Two weeks later, when the Duke of Burgundy and his royals finally entered Paris – a city hastily sluiced down and tidied up, with the blood all scrubbed away and the bodies hastily buried on the edges of graveyards and the only touches of red the rose petals scattered through the streets and the St Andrew’s flags – Owain was part of the cheerful crowd at Notre Dame, waiting for the two royal litters to wobble into sight, followed by the rest of the Duke of Burgundy’s triumphal parade. Standing beside him, composed in her neat blue and white, was Christine.
From her horse, moving at a stately walk, Catherine watched her father and mother, lying in litters side by side, holding hands. The King of France was laughing a little at something his wife was whispering to him. Catherine could hardly believe how calmly he’d taken all the hurried moving around in the past few days. He was happy whenever the Queen was kind with him, and she, triumphant at her escape and the defeat of her son, couldn’t have been kinder. Papa hardly even seemed to notice the cheers of the crowds lining the Paris streets. Catherine crossed herself.
Perhaps she’d been too frightened, when it had happened. Perhaps her father was right to take it more calmly. The narrow streets stretching back from Notre Dame that she could see now were just as she remembered them: no blood; nothing out of place; just flowers and sunshine and smiles everywhere. Perhaps Charles had been the one who’d been mistaken to take fright, and take flight …
No … And, despite herself, Catherine almost laughed. Charles hadn’t been wrong to run away, now their mother was out of the jail in which he’d put her. She called to mind her mother’s snuffling fury at the very thought of him. ‘Ashamed to have brought that one into the world,’ Isabeau had taken to ranting, whenever Charles’ name was mentioned. ‘Should have strangled him at birth. I do not consider him my son.’ The servants’ indrawn breaths; Burgundy’s thin-lipped disapproval; her father’s mild, worried-looking expostulations, ‘Come, come, my dear.’ None of it had cowed Isabeau. She’d just fixed them all with her most frightening look, making sure everyone was listening before she told her husband, as loudly and provocatively as she could, ‘Well, I don’t consider him mine; and he’s certainly not yours. He should think twice before he runs away with the idea that the throne is his birthright.’
It would have rung far truer if Isabeau hadn’t spent all Louis’ youth telling him, every time they quarrelled, that she could unmake him, too, as the future King of France. As it was, even Catherine’s father only tutted sadly at his wife’s unthinking temper tantrum and looked out of the window, giving her time to recover her poise. Yet, even after Burgundy had said, in thin, reproving tones, ‘Madam, enough,’ Isabeau went on looking truculently round, as if seeking approval for her claim that she’d foisted bastards on the royal house of France.
Catherine fixed her eyes on the Duke of Burgundy, just up ahead in the street with his son Philip, both bowing and waving to the people. The Duke was the real ruler of Paris today. He was wearing velvet robes embroidered with the diagonal red cross of Saint Andrew that the six hundred burghers of Paris who’d met them at the gate had brought him for this march into the city centre. The robes hung loose off his long, lean, busy, jerky frame. But his face – long, bony, with hoo
ded, burning eyes above his great eagle’s beak of a nose – was almost relaxed, for once; he was almost smiling.
Catherine couldn’t help herself. Despite the apparent warmth of the day, she shivered. She was still just as frightened of the Duke of Burgundy as she’d ever been. Every time Burgundy looked at her, from under those heavy eyelids, her heart almost stopped. She’d been brought up with the fear of him; she and Charles both. Even if her mother, who’d whispered the stories in the first place, now seemed half in love with him, her cousin made her flesh crawl. Controlling it was beyond her, even if the stories were nonsense, which she knew they might be.
Being in Burgundy’s control now felt worse, Catherine thought, than almost anything else that had happened to her; however polite he was; however correct. She didn’t want to be here, with him. But there was no way out – except through Charles, and that way was closed forever too. Charles was dead to her. She was more of a prisoner than ever.
More to distract herself from her dread of her uncle of Burgundy than for any real reason, she glanced down at the people cheering behind the line of guardsmen.
She looked again. Her heart leapt. She rubbed her eyes. Smiled.
It was a wish granted. Christine was there, just as usual, in a blue dress and modest white headdress. Alive. She was waving and smiling straight back at Catherine, with her familiar piercing gaze.
Catherine nodded; breathed out; nudged her horse closer. Christine was safe, and here. She had a friend in the crowd. Suddenly even Christine’s less engaging habits – her probings about marriageable princes; her awkward, prickly awareness of duty, whether her own duty or that of other people – seemed endearing; felt like home and family saved. There was nothing Catherine wanted more than to have Christine with her: to be talking over the events of the past weeks and getting back to normal. Catherine held Christine’s gaze, and mouthed at her over the din: ‘Come to me! Please! Soon!’
It was only when she’d pushed her horse’s head right through the line of guards, so she could have touched Christine’s head if she’d leaned forward – and was stretching out her hand, hoping their palms would briefly brush before she had to move on with the procession – that she saw Christine wasn’t alone.
Standing beside her was a tall, well-built, strikingly handsome young gentleman, also staring intently at her. He had blue eyes, and black hair.
She could hardly believe it. But it was Owain Tudor.
She felt no shame at the sight of him. Not any more. Too much had happened; she wasn’t the same person as the child who had once kissed him in the woods. Nor was he, probably: he was bigger, and more solid. He’d probably forgotten …
But he was here. And she was so ravenously hungry for happiness that she let the banned memories flood joyfully back: the shout of songbirds and the heat of that other morning’s sun on her back; the rumble of his voice and the rasp of his cheek; the recollection of all the hopes she’d once had, long ago.
She’d let her mouth fall open, she realised. She put her hand over her open mouth. But she couldn’t stop staring. Owain Tudor was staring back, and his expression was as gentle as ever, and the corners of his mouth were turning up.
PART THREE
Lamentations on the
Troubles of France
ONE
The battered, bloodied city of Paris lurched into a future controlled by the Duke of Burgundy. This was what the rioters had wanted. But, now they had it, no one seemed happy. In sweltering July heat, the markets began to reopen, though many cautious stallholders stayed at home and the goods on sale were the cheapest and most disposable – just in case. Boatmen took to the river again. Houses that still had inhabitants had clusters of workmen outside, repairing the broken windows and bashed-down doors. But many more houses and taverns stayed boarded up. The goldsmiths’ streets and those of the book trade operated only from behind bars, and most of the elegant homes in which members of the parliament had lived were closed. The University stopped working. A lot of people seemed to have left town. The streets, with their patches of new paint and wood and stone, their scrubbed-away blood and their burnt-out plots, looked shabbier than before. They felt uncannily quiet. Anyone you did see out seemed to be flinching fearfully over his shoulder at imaginary sounds behind. There were more dogs and abandoned livestock than usual, howling in the alleyways. The churches echoed. There were rumours of plague.
When the heralds announced that the Duke of Burgundy was making a formal peace alliance with the English against Prince Charles and the Armagnac princes of the south, the remaining people of Paris only sighed and shook their heads. If that was what the Duke wanted, they muttered doubtfully; the English were wolves, but the Armagnacs were dogs. Perhaps it would be all right.
All Owain’s hard-won poise had vanished as soon as he had seen Catherine again.
He spent the night of the royal return to Paris alone in his room at the inn, transfixed by the memory of her. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t think of anything else. She’d looked perhaps a little thinner, taller, and more watchful than he remembered. But he’d have known that neck, those shoulders, anywhere. And when she’d actually turned, and looked right into his eyes … he shivered at the thought of it. Grabbed his hair in his hands. Almost howled with the pain of it.
He was ashamed – worse than ashamed – to feel a lovesick boy again. This was much worse than before; more knowing, and, at the same time, more hopeless. He’d promised himself not to do this, or feel this. There was no future in letting his heart run away with him a second time. He knew his place in life, now; he’d accepted it. He was his English master’s servant, here to set in motion arrangements for a royal marriage. This woman, whom he’d once known, a little, was perhaps to be Henry’s bride. He didn’t want to be filled with this madness. He had to rip it out of himself.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t do it.
Owain knew he could see Catherine again. He had the letters from Henry, and he had instructions to deliver them personally to the King (or Queen, or Prince, or Count of Armagnac, depending on the circumstances) – and to Catherine herself.
He didn’t know whether it was his mad or his sane self hugging that knowledge to his heart and laughing.
Owain looked at the Duke of Burgundy’s bowed head and thought, in surprise: But he’s an old man.
The Duke, in black velvet, was cadaverous and beaky. Owain had seen him once before – during a battlefield meeting with Henry, when Henry had tried (unsuccessfully, back then) to persuade him to join forces with England against the other French princes. Owain had had no trouble today recognising that great grim scarecrow of a man, with his spare movements and cold lizard eyes. But the Duke seemed to have shrunk. His skin was leathery and desiccated. His stillness no longer made you think of a snake about to strike; just of the cautious movements of the elderly.
But the Duke still had power. It did no good Owain protesting, ‘But, but, one of these letters is addressed to His Majesty the King, and the other is for Princess Catherine. I was told to deliver them into their own hands, personally …’ The Duke took no notice. He just held out his jewelled hand and fixed Owain with his unblinking gaze and waited for the envoy to stop talking.
Owain had entered the room hardly able to breathe for the beating of his heart. He’d expected Catherine to be at the audience, but she was nowhere to be seen. And the Duke had said nothing that suggested she would be called in. While the Duke read, Owain breathed in and out, slowly, rhythmically, trying to get control over himself.
He couldn’t read the Duke’s face as the Duke read the letter. But Owain felt almost certain that the Duke couldn’t accept the marriage proposal he was carrying, even though he’d just made an alliance with the English against Prince Charles. (How Burgundy and Charles must hate each other, Owain thought, looking curiously at the older man’s impassive face; he couldn’t imagine any of the tight-knit circle of English royal broth
ers and cousins ever betraying each other in that way.) The English terms for the marriage were even greedier than before; Owain was old enough now to recognise that. He’d told himself he would count his mission an unexpected success if he even managed to deliver the letters. He’d take the chilly refusal of Henry’s marriage proposal, which he knew Burgundy would get round to in a minute, with fortitude. But, if he could only see Catherine, for even a moment, before he left. Just one glance, as he put her letter into her own hands.
The Duke gave Owain a bleak smile. Here it came.
‘You may or may not know,’ the Duke said, and Owain wondered at how that thin, nasal, slightly stuttering voice had the power to make his heart quail and droop, ‘that I’ve just concluded a military alliance with Henry of England against Prince Charles. That’s a separate question, of course. But you should know that I would look favourably on a marriage; and of course on a peace agreement between France and England. If the t-t-t-terms were right.’
Burgundy waited for Owain to smile, look overjoyed, bow his gratitude. Owain duly did what was expected of him, and dropped his head and back. He was glad, at least, that this hid his eyes.
He should have been pleased. If he’d been a good diplomat, he would have been pleased. This unlikely soft answer made it just possible that he might, after all, return to Henry with the promise of a wife.
But looking overjoyed now was almost beyond Owain, who felt instead as anguished as though his stomach were full of ground glass. As though he’d been hit in the face; or had his legs chopped off.
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