Her heart beat louder than the drums and trumpets. Her eyes were seeking him out from the first moment she saw the canopy. She was smiling wider than ever before, so wide it hurt her face.
But when she finally saw him in the crowd and fixed her eyes on him, trying to stare him into finding her face too, his distant features seemed smaller and less imposing than she remembered.
There was a mighty drum-roll as she stepped under the canopy. Henry, close now, stepped forward from a phalanx of Englishmen and bowed. She raised him to his feet, laughing out loud from relief at being next to him, and with delight at seeing those familiar wide-set, prominent eyes, that long, thin face and those slightly over-full red lips – no one could hear a thing for the noise of the drums, so it didn’t matter how loudly she laughed. Then she stepped forward to give him the ceremonial public kiss and embrace expected of them both.
Henry’s face came up towards her, past her; he leaned down into the kiss. He smelled the same, and she recognised her husband’s light, detached smile. But the face behind it was flesh-less as a skull and the skin an unhealthy white. Why was he so thin?
The drum-roll held and held. The knights cheered and rattled their swords in their scabbards.
How white he was. And he was swaying.
‘Henry,’ she shouted anxiously, though her shout passed for a whisper under the fifes and drums. ‘Are you well?’
‘Never better,’ her husband mouthed back, with wild, gay eyes. A lie, she could see almost at once, when his face suddenly contorted. He buried his head in her shoulder so no one could see. He leaned heavily on her. She could hear his hissing intakes of breath. Sensing he didn’t want to display weakness, she put her arms round him, and the knights cheered and rattled louder than ever.
She bowed and smiled to them, so wide she bared her teeth and gums, then withdrew behind the hangings, half carrying him inside.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked as soon as they were alone. ‘You’re frightening me.’
But he pulled away, and began urgently feeling his way along the wall to the broad staircase that would take him to his rooms. ‘Nothing,’ he said, hurrying unsteadily towards the stairs, concentrating. There was sweat on his greenish skin. ‘Touch of the sun … something I ate … fine in a few minutes.’
He only came back a few minutes before the cavalcade was due to leave. He looked drained but less green. A purging sickness, Catherine could see. But all he said was, ‘Nasty’, and then, after another deep breath, ‘Over now’. He was trying to be normal.
‘Thank you for covering up for me out there,’ he said more coherently. He even managed a faint grin. He added: ‘You won’t get rid of me that easily.’
‘Well, thank God for that,’ Catherine said. Then, softening over the familiar clipped way he talked, she added with a burst of affection, ‘I’ve missed you.’
And when he crinkled up his eyes and said, ‘Missed you too’, her heart swelled so she thought it might burst. She thought he meant it.
There was so much to tell. About Harry: the little boy’s wide blue eyes, the way he smiled, the way he crawled, the look on his face when he’d first tasted egg, the shape of his fingers (Catherine’s) and legs (Henry’s). There was so much to ask. It had been more than a year.
And he was still so pale.
‘You’re still not well,’ she said. ‘I can see. You can’t ride to Paris. Let’s ask for two litters.’
But he wouldn’t. He only laughed; and she laughed along at the revulsion in his eyes. ‘Me, in a litter,’ he said in a stronger voice, shrugging the absurd idea off. She could see he didn’t think it at all a suitable vehicle for a warrior. So she let him ride, and took the Queen’s litter herself.
Sitting back in it, letting the curtains be hooked up around her, she chuckled with relief at the memory of his laugh, and relaxed back against the silks. Henry was back – her protector; her friend – and all was well with the world. Henry’s qualities now seemed familiar: his straightforwardness, low-key humour, underlying ambition, and his love of war. Looking at her husband just now, she’d felt she’d come to know him through and through since marrying him. His qualities were all the best possible ones for Harry’s father to have – little Harry, the centre of her world now, whom she missed so much at every moment of every day, who was so young and so vulnerable and so beautiful – and who, for many years to come, would need a strong man’s protection. Even Henry’s stubbornness would help protect their son. Although Catherine was aware that she could look at her husband, touch him, kiss him, without her heart doing any of the melting, swooning things dwelt on by love poetry, it didn’t seem to matter any more. Romantic love was for overwrought children, maidens and striplings, the young, under a full moon. She was a matron of twenty, and a mother; she was beyond all that. She liked Henry and admired him more than anyone she could think of. That was grown-up love. In the privacy of her litter, lying back and smiling over the knowledge that she had both husband and son in her life, both Henry and Harry, Catherine felt more contented than ever before – blessed.
There were frequent stops on the way to Paris. From inside her litter Catherine didn’t always know why. It was only once they had processed back to the Louvre that she saw Henry was still unwell.
He retired with his wife to the royal rooms. ‘It’s been too long,’ he said, putting his hands round her waist and laughing down at her. Catherine laughed, happy enough at the thought of making love to her husband; happy that God had been good to her in her life.
He was pulling her clothes off her as soon as they got through the door; hurrying; muttering hasty endearments in her ear. Flattered, she thought it was the intensity of his desire pushing him on. It was only after they’d separated and she’d sprawled languorously across the bed, ready to talk, that she saw there might be another reason for the rush. His face had got that deathly pallor again. He didn’t want to lie and chat with her – or couldn’t. He kept interrupting her stories of Harry and vanishing to the privy. And he was still stubbornly pretending nothing was wrong.
‘Call a doctor,’ she said.
He flapped a dismissive hand, and replied too casually: ‘Oh, doctors … Quacks, all of them. Bunch of old women.’
That, she realised, meant no: meant that real men got better by themselves. She suppressed her impatience.
‘How long have you been like this?’ she asked an hour later when he hadn’t improved.
He tried to laugh. ‘It’s bloody Saint Fiacre,’ he said. ‘Getting his revenge. That’s what they’ll say. Isn’t it?’ He caught her eye as if inviting her to echo his mocking laugh. But his mirth cut off before she could join in, and he clutched at his gut and curled in on himself, going pale again.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘All my generals said we shouldn’t have executions after taking Meaux. But we were there for months … lost a lot of men, wasted a lot of time,’ Henry muttered between spasms of pain. ‘Had to do something to show my displeasure. Didn’t want to let the French think I’m soft. So I’m having Saint Fiacre dug up. Going to take him back to England.’
Catherine crossed herself and winced. She didn’t know whether she truly believed a saint would take revenge for the indignity of being disinterred; but all the stories about Saint Fiacre suggested he’d been a curmudgeonly, vindictive sort of holy man in life. He was the patron saint of piles. Why run the risk?
‘What – Duke John, and your other generals, they agreed that it was a good idea to dig up a saint’s relics?’ she asked, unable to believe they could all be such reckless fools.
Henry shook his head. ‘None of them,’ he mumbled. ‘So I said I’d leave it till after this break in Paris. Then thought … this morning … why waste time? … Gave the order after all.’
He laughed again at the look on Catherine’s face. It seemed to make him feel better. He sat up.
‘Well, send word back now,’ Catherine said. Henry’s stubbornness was not a good quality; not
in this situation. ‘Tell them to stop.’
‘Ahh … you don’t believe it too, do you?’ he said. He leaned forward, chucked her under the chin. Smiled defiantly back. ‘With all your book learning, as superstitious as …?’
She never learned what superstitious being he’d been going to compare her with. He stopped; clutched at his gut; choked; and ran for the door.
Henry’s disappearances went on all through the banquet at the Louvre that night. The pains let up a little, allowing him to sleep, but he refused to share a bed with Catherine all the same. He had a pallet made up next to the privy. The pain came back before the Mass at Notre Dame at dawn. The King of England was in no fit state to notice the cathedral interior, decked with greenery and ribbons in the fresh colours of early summer – his Queen’s design.
There was a further delay at midday, before the procession of the English lords of Paris, waiting in the courtyard of the Louvre, could set off with their King in pride of place. They crossed the city to the Hotel de Nesle on the Left Bank, where a group of hopeful, opportunistic Parisian mummers had mastered the unfamiliar mystery play of Saint George for their foreign audience.
Henry left before the performance was over. ‘I’ll come too,’ Catherine muttered as he got up. He shook his head. He was sweating again.
She sat in the gardens under a lime tree the next day, half-sleeping, feeling dazedly sorry for her husband. Henry had sat up all night in his privy, trying to be quiet, trying not to groan. She’d followed him there. She’d sent away the servants. She’d put water and rags outside, where he could get them. But whenever she’d said, ‘Henry, can I help?’ through the door, he’d just tried to sound normal and said, ‘Go to sleep …’ and ‘It’s nothing serious …’ and ‘… almost over’.
He wasn’t grateful. He wanted his servants back. He couldn’t let her see weakness.
Sighing, wishing he’d heeded her advice about Saint Fiacre, she had called his men back.
He had left at dawn. They all had. They were on their way to a new siege against Charles at Cosne-sur-Loire. He had whispered to her, as he came to kiss her goodbye, that it didn’t matter if his gut was still churning. It happened to everyone on battlefields. It would pass.
‘Stay a couple more days,’ she had pleaded. ‘Rest. Let your body recover.’
But he had only laughed that dismissive laugh again: the laugh of a man with work to do. ‘You’ll be sending me off to battle in a litter if I’m not careful.’
After he’d gone, when she could still see the evidence of his having been there – crumpled sheets, a forgotten nightgown, the smell of man’s sweat, and a privy she’d prefer not to enter – Catherine had gone on lying on the bed, looking at the bright stripes of light that seemed to burn round the edge of the shutter, feeling disappointed and alone and unimportant.
She’d thought of the unnoticed green branches at the cathedral; the charms of her green and gold dress, which he hadn’t mentioned; the unheeded elegance of the flowers woven into all those horses’ manes and tails. She’d thought of her unheeded advice about doctors and Meaux. She shook her head. He’d been ill; but he hadn’t had time for her either. He never had. How had she convinced herself that everything was so perfect? If only her husband would pay attention to what she said and thought. If only …
Lying there, not wanting to get up and think of things to do to fill the day, and the next day, and more days – the weight of all those pointless days looming emptily ahead – just so she could justify being here without Henry, and without Harry. Perhaps she should have stayed with her child all along and left her husband and parents to fend for themselves. Catherine found herself feeling as invisible and ghostly and lonely as in those long ago days at the palace, when she’d been her father’s nurse. Only it was worse now – more invisible and ghostly and lonely – because there was no one here to talk to any more; no confidante; no Christine.
At least her parents still needed her. At least she could go to the Hotel Saint-Paul. She could stay a few days there, now there was nothing else to do.
But even that didn’t seem as much consolation now as it might have done before.
She was sitting alone under the lime trees in the Saint-Paul gardens that evening, watching the sun set, when the King’s messenger came.
She knew it must be Owain Tudor. Who else would have known to look for her here, in the depths of these gardens?
He was out of breath; the horse behind him jangled. The heat of the perfect day lingered. He wiped his brow before bowing; took his hat down into his hands. He looked careful, as if telling himself not to let his guard down, she thought.
Stung, she barely greeted him. Just lowered her head and raised one eyebrow.
When he told her the King had stopped at Corbeil to regain his strength, she only nodded.
‘He’s sent the rest of the party on,’ Owain continued. He had a few freckles on his cheekbones. His bare head was sweaty and rumpled. She loved the way the black hair fell on his neck. With him there’d been poetry and moonlight all right; there’d been a time when she’d invested the fall of that hair on that neck with a significance that, even now, tied her tongue and put heat in her cheeks. She never should have … if only she could wipe the memory out forever …
She inclined her head again. She wanted him to go. But he stayed, shifting from foot to foot as if he had more to say.
She looked up.
‘You mustn’t worry,’ he said, and for a flash she could see the old tenderness in his eyes; hear softness in his voice. Even though she knew Owain would only say something like that if he was worried himself about the King’s illness, the very fact of his wanting to reassure her was reassuring.
Like a flower turning its face towards the sun she leaned gratefully forward, sighed, smiled. But even that tiny shift of atmosphere was too much for him. He flinched and remounted.
‘I’ll leave tomorrow, early,’ he said through his teeth. ‘If you’d like me to take a letter back …’
She said, bewildered: ‘Where will I find you? Do you need rooms?’
‘No. The Louvre,’ he said shortly, letting his horse frisk – an excuse to be excused. He didn’t want to take letters for her, she could see. She couldn’t write a letter and get it to him at the Louvre by dawn, anyway; he’d have to volunteer to stop here on his way back out of Paris. She said sadly, ‘Then … no letter.’
The June heat didn’t let up. The crops were burning up in the fields. There was smallpox. Anastaise said it was commonest among the English, but Catherine thought that was just her wishful thinking. There was a lot of dysentery: the worst kind, Saint Fiacre’s. The kind Henry had. There were doctors attending to him now, Catherine heard from Paris. She sent daily to the Louvre, or visited in person so she could have news as soon as it came. That was an admission of her own lowly status among the English; they all knew that word about the King’s health never first came to the King’s wife.
In July, the churches of Paris started praying for his health. There were many messengers. But the next time Owain came back, it was from Vincennes, in the middle of August. He looked as though he hated the task he’d set himself, but Catherine was grateful that he, at least, made a point of seeking her out after reporting to the dukes, to bring her up-to-date on her husband’s health.
The King was no better, Owain said, so he’d left Corbeil and gone by barge to the comfort of Vincennes Castle. He’d tried to ride the last leg of the journey, but failed. He was weak: almost at the end of his strength.
‘They put him in a litter,’ Owain said.
Catherine bit her lip. It must be serious.
After a moment, Owain added: ‘The Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Exeter are called to Vincennes.’
Vincennes was only an hour’s ride away. Humbly, Catherine said: ‘And me, should I go too?’
Distantly, Owain replied: ‘I have no instructions.’
‘Owain …’ she pleaded. ‘Tell me … please. He’s my husb
and. Is he dying?’
Owain looked startled at that. Perhaps he hadn’t had time, with all the riding to and fro, to imagine the end of Henry. He looked back at Catherine with dawning horror in his eyes.
Very slowly, he nodded. ‘I think … yes.’ There was none of the old guardedness in his voice now, just shocked honesty.
‘Will you take me back with you?’ she asked. ‘To Vincennes?’ She was thinking only of Henry. She was thinking: Has he no time for me, even now, even when his death might be upon him?
Owain had lost the distance and the quiet hostility that he’d come with. But he shook his head nevertheless. ‘He’s only called for the others to help him draw up documents,’ he explained, every inch the Englishman; every inch the devoted disciple of Henry of England. ‘A will, a war plan, plans for who should govern England and France if he dies before your son grows up. It’s a business meeting … he didn’t send for you … he’s not ready for farewells …’
He looked agonised. She could see that he was imagining the torment she must be in; that there must be pity for her mixed up in his hero-worship of her husband. Then he said in a rush: ‘He doesn’t like to feel vulnerable. It would unman him if you were there. He might get well any time. I can’t take you now. But I’ll come back for you … if …’ he lifted apologetic shoulders, ‘if it’s the last minute.’ He put a hand on her arm. ‘I promise.’
Catherine was ashamed that even at that moment she could be so aware of Owain’s touch.
She was glad that night to be at the Hotel Saint-Paul. She wanted to feel at home; to have people who loved her close by. Before dawn she went to the chapel and lit twelve candles, spiking a couple of them sideways so she could enjoy the wax pouring in a sweet rush down their sides.
She’d come downstairs when she heard the monks finishing their singing of Matins. The air was hot and scented with incense.
Blood Royal Page 33
