‘It all starts when you enter Reims Cathedral, with all the nobility of France gathered to watch you …’
He piped, in his awkward not-quite-native French: ‘Why Reims? Why not Paris? Or Saint-Denis, or somewhere else? What’s so special about Reims?’
‘Well, you do process on from Reims to Saint-Denis, down the Saint Marcoul of Corbeny road, and after that on to Paris, with crowds cheering all the way – but only afterwards, when you’re already the King, because the abbey of Saint-Denis is the spiritual home of those who are already king,’ she replied patiently, wondering at how much he still didn’t know about France. She added: ‘Once you’ve been granted the divine royal power to cure sickness and work miracles,’ because as a child that’s what she’d been told happened to a King of France after his coronation. She stifled the brief thought that came to her now: if only Papa had really been able to work miracles and cure sickness – even his own.
‘Reims is the place where you’re crowned King of France because that’s where our ancestor Clovis became the first king of the French … and a Christian … and where a white dove flew to him with holy oil for his baptism … and for the thousand years since then, that ampulla and the chrism inside have stayed at Reims Cathedral … waiting to anoint new kings … waiting …’ she turned to him and widened her eyes and touched her nose playfully against his, ‘for you!’
He squealed an answering squeal of delight.
She was enjoying losing herself in this recitation of how things should be, or might have been. So was her son. ‘You wear gold, and you carry the sword of Charlemagne,’ she intoned, and he looked at her with shining eyes. ‘And you can choose your crown. You can wear the Holy Crown, Saint Louis’ crown, which has a true thorn from Jesus Christ’s crown of spines embedded in it … or you can wear Charlemagne’s imperial crown, covered in French lily flowers.’
He nodded again, but sleepily now, with eyelids beginning to droop. ‘The Holy one,’ he muttered importantly. ‘I’d like that one.’
She stroked his drowsy, happy head again. She was imagining the soft trace of chrism on forehead and hands; the catch of myrrh in the nostrils, the fleeting knowledge of the holiness in majesty that a whiff of that bitterness would bring him …
‘That’s all you need … those are the symbols that are sacred to France,’ she murmured, almost singing. ‘When your people see you in that crown and with that sword, lit up in gold and sunshine, they’ll know you as their true king for the rest of your life. You and no one else.’
His head dropped. She kissed him. ‘You and no one else,’ she repeated, more to herself than him.
But he wasn’t quite asleep. He stirred as she quietly rose. He said, with his eyes still shut: ‘But Maman, what about the other King of France?’
Catherine froze. ‘What other King of France?’ she said.
He wouldn’t open his eyes. He dug himself deeper into the cushion and it muffled his words. ‘The one who’s just been crowned at Reims. The boys told me. There’s another one.’
‘Oh, him … he’s not the real king,’ she replied quickly, trying to sound casual, wishing that the little boy stretched out below her, hugging at the cushion, didn’t look so like Charles had long ago. ‘He’s just a bad man, pretending. We’re trying to catch him and stop him.’
Harry was quiet. Catherine snuffed out lights and tiptoed towards the door.
‘But how do we know he’s pretending?’ Harry called insistently. ‘If he’s already gone to Reims, and done those things, and said those prayers, and God did nothing to punish him? How do we know it isn’t me who God will think is pretending?’
She laughed uneasily from the doorway. ‘We just know,’ she said, peering back into the darkness where he lay. ‘Trust me.’
It wasn’t enough. She could hear that in the expectant quality of his silence. Harry wanted more.
‘God didn’t recognise him, and nor did the people of France. They all knew he was cheating,’ she improvised.
‘How?’
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Because he didn’t have the crown or the sword; because he wasn’t the King.’
She heard the little sound from inside the door. A satisfied, ‘Ohh.’ He believed her now. If only it had really been that simple, she thought as she hurried away.
She’d spoken the truth, in a sense. Charles hadn’t worn the full regalia of kingship in the hasty trip to Reims. The crown jewels were stored at the Abbey of Saint-Denis, which was in English hands. They had been unavailable to him. No one knew what crown had been used for Charles, though one had been found somewhere; but a copy of the coronation ordo had been released to him from the nearby Abbey of Saint Rémi. Having the sword and the crown that had always symbolised French belief in their King’s sacred blood would help Harry when it was his turn to be anointed. But the very fact that Charles had managed to cross enemy territory to reach Reims had been enough to convince many Frenchmen of his royalty. It might take a lot to convince them now – perhaps more than a sword and a crown, however sacred – that a little boy from England, who knew nothing of France, was really their leader.
The Earl of Warwick was the one who broke the news to Harry, at the midday dinner right after his return to Wallingford. Loudly, so everyone in the hall could hear, he told the King he would be required to travel to France for a second coronation immediately after the English crowning.
There was a hush up and down the great hall at his announcement. Even the hungriest of the young noblemen, exhausted from a morning on horseback, stopped the cheerful spearing of bits of meat from the joints and put down their knives. They gazed up at the top of the table, with eyes as suddenly wide and watchful as deer in the woods. They all knew France was dangerous, if exciting. France was where you went to fight.
Catherine hadn’t known Warwick would make a public announcement like this so soon. She had no idea they were in such a hurry. So she was staring too. But, sitting two places from the head of the table, with Warwick on her right, standing up, his arms and hips blocking off her view of her small son, she couldn’t tell what impression the information had made on Harry. All she could see was Warwick’s bony frame swelling with rage.
The Earl turned rudely away from her to face the invisible child. ‘You say, “Yes, my lord”,’ he grated, pushing too close to Harry; planting his wiry arms threateningly on the table. His voice was icy with dislike. ‘You say, “I am grateful to Their Graces the dukes for their efforts on my behalf.”’
Catherine heard the little voice pipe up in reply; but, although she was craning round Warwick’s back to try to catch Harry’s eye, she still couldn’t see his face.
Harry said, and his treble voice was full of alarm: ‘Will my mother be with me?’
Catherine closed her eyes. She felt sick with fear for him.
Warwick’s voice – hollow, fiercely quiet – carried to the farthest reaches of the hall. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Learn to think like a man.’
From behind the Earl, Catherine heard a muffled, defiant: ‘I don’t want to go to France.’
There was an indrawn breath from all around the hall. Warwick said: ‘Go to your room. Now.’
‘You’re not allowed to hit me!’ Harry squealed, and she could hear panic now. The eyes all went down; fixed on their food boards; boys imagining themselves elsewhere. ‘I’m the King!’
Warwick said, still in the same grim monotone: ‘And I am your master.’
‘Stop,’ Catherine said faintly. Her hands, clenched under the table, parted to touch the Earl’s shoulder and hold him back. But a tall form stepped between them, brushing her hand gently back, and stood between her and Warwick for what seemed an age, slowly and deliberately laying a small roast bird down on her platter. Owain turned and shook his head at her. Warwick was too angry. It would do no good to intervene.
So Warwick carried on. There was a scuffle; a flailing of arms and hair. Then Warwick was walking out of the hall, half-pushing, half-carrying the little boy, hi
gher and higher, till Harry was hanging by the scruff of his neck like a kitten about to be drowned, his feet uselessly kicking at the air.
Through the open door, echoing down the corridor, Catherine heard the animal howling begin. Every instinct in her body was telling her to go and protect her child from the brute carrying him off. She was furious with the other body right in front of her; hot and light with her anger. But she couldn’t start scuffling with the official who was serving her food in front of the entire hall.
With tears of helpless rage forming in her eyes, she stared down at her food. The other boys were still looking down at their platters too. She knew now. They’d seen this before.
Owain remembered the Earl of Warwick’s eyes like that. Like fire. Or like charcoal: hard and dark grey, glowing with the pleasure of inflicting pain.
He remembered the Earl whispering in his ear, enjoying the fear he could see on Owain’s face. ‘Do you know what they do in Muscovy with traitors’ sons like you? They impale them on spikes and leave them to be eaten by wild dogs.’
Warwick had got a reputation for chivalry after fighting in the Welsh campaign. He’d gone on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land but spent most of his three years away jousting in different parts of Europe. On the return journey he’d gone to Muscovy. The cruelty of the Russians had made a lasting impression on him.
Owain had had nightmares for years after his boyhood in Warwick’s charge: dreams in which those eyes were burning in the darkness, and that hard voice was muttering in his ear; in which Owain forgot his pride and howled.
He tried not to think of the beatings. But it wasn’t just the beatings. It was the very sight of Warwick’s tight shoulders and that bleak, quiet face that had always made Owain shiver, long before the man’s hand had been raised against him in something worse than anger. Owain had felt that instinctive, involuntary coldness – something walking on his grave, something deeper than fear – at ten or eleven, when he’d first been put in Warwick’s charge. He’d felt it again when, as an adult, he saw Warwick again. He’d tried not to; he’d tried to leave it all behind and see Warwick with a grown-up’s objective eyes. But he couldn’t help it. He felt it still.
Warwick probably wasn’t even aware that, in the confusion of the Battle of Mynydd Cwmdu, when Owain had still been a very small child, when Warwick had rushed the English contingent forward, nearly caught Owain Glynd?r, got his banner instead, and forced the Welsh to flee down the valley of the River Usk, he was said, among the Welsh survivors, to have been the Englishman who’d delivered the sword blow that later – much later, after it had festered for weeks, stinking and driving its victim mad with pain and fear – had killed Owain’s father, Maredudd ap Tudur. Owain had always hoped Warwick hadn’t known that. If Warwick had known, Owain felt he might have wanted to use it to inflict more pain on his charge.
Owain hoped little Harry would have the sense to fold himself up small and submit.
Owain only moved away from the table, where he was blocking Catherine from rushing after the Earl of Warwick, once the noises had diminished. In the hall, the silence continued.
Several minutes later, Warwick returned to the table alone. He finished his meal without another word. Owain withdrew from the room.
Catherine – feeling guiltily appalled that she’d been unable to protect her son from this man’s cruelty – was still too angry to speak. Warwick must have been beating Harry all these months; she’d suspected something but no one would tell her. Had everyone known all along? She tried to concentrate. It didn’t matter. She’d recognised him now as the enemy, but she didn’t know how to act. She couldn’t just stalk out or shout at him; Owain’s intervention, infuriating as it had seemed, had given her a moment or two to understand the hopelessness of that. It was all very well feeling angry, but if she didn’t have a strategy, or a hope of achieving something with her anger, she knew it would be counter-productive to show it. One day there’d be a time when she could take on this bully and his paymaster, Humphrey, and beat him, she hoped – beat the pair of them. Until then, she’d just have to bide her time.
Warwick knew how helpless she felt. When he stood up to lead out the quiet boys for their afternoon’s activities, he turned, just enough to show Catherine his grim, thin line of a mouth, and said: ‘His Majesty will not be riding with us today; he will spend the afternoon in quiet contemplation, alone. He asks to be excused from supper.’
She nodded mutely at her plate. But as soon as she saw Warwick outside, on horseback in the courtyard, with boys whose breastplates gleamed in the sun as they mounted and fiddled with saddles on all sides, she ran straight to Harry’s room.
Harry was sobbing, still; but quietly. It wasn’t the lowing animal noises she so dreaded: the howls of a lost soul. He was lying on his bed, face down, with his dark-blond hair rough and tousled, and half a dozen angry red and blue stripes on his bare, quivering back.
Owain had got there first. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, gently rubbing the bruises with goose fat while talking even more gently: a non-stop stream of reassurance.
‘… Not too bad … you’ll be fine by tomorrow … but it always hurts … I know … I used to be beaten all the time when I was a boy … your father was the first one to do it … can you imagine that? Said it was the only way he could think of to stop me singing in Welsh … he said he’d heard enough of it to last him a lifetime … language of traitors and slaves … took me years to stop … was in my blood … but I respected him for it in the end … he was so clear about what he wanted, and didn’t want … and generous as anything once you grasped what he wanted and did it.’
‘Did he beat you? When he was your master?’ Harry sniffled.
Owain saw Catherine motionless in the doorway. She drew closer. She couldn’t stop herself.
Owain didn’t answer the question. Even now, all these years later, he didn’t like to remember fearing Warwick. Instead he turned his head down to Harry again: ‘… It won’t be so bad, going to France … nothing to fear … you’ll see … and you’ll see Paris … I envy you that … the most beautiful city in the world … white turrets and cherry trees … Haven’t I told you about my first time there? Couldn’t stop staring … so beautiful … like falling in love …’
The sniffles stopped. Harry was thinking.
‘But I want my mother there,’ he said after a pause, with his head still buried in the pillow, his voice muffled and weak, but calm. ‘She’s French. She’ll want to see too. And she knows what to do in France. I don’t. I’ll be scared without her.’
Catherine reached the bed, and, kneeling by Harry’s head, began stroking the rumpled hair. He showed no surprise that she’d come. He kept his head in the pillow, as if he were ashamed of his tear-stained face. But he put out a hand and laid it trustingly on her arm.
The three of them stayed close there for a few more moments: Owain rubbing the child’s back, Catherine stroking his head; Harry with a warm little hand on her arm. Catherine wanted that moment to go on forever, but then Owain got up, put the lid back on the jar of ointment, and quickly left the room.
‘I want to come to France with you,’ Catherine murmured, kissing her son’s head. ‘I’ll try to. But we have to be careful about how we ask. Uncle Humphrey needs to think he’s thought of it for himself. So I’m going to try to ask when the moment is right. Not yet: not till Earl Richard’s forgotten being so cross today …’
Harry shifted his head. She could see half of one blotched, snot-smeared cheek now, and one swollen eye looking carefully at her. Overwhelmed by tenderness, she whispered: ‘It will be our secret … that we’re trying for that … so do you think you can keep quiet about it for a while?’
The eye went on looking at her. Then, with a damp slither, Harry wriggled his arms around her. With his head buried in her bodice, he muttered: ‘Yes.’
She found Owain again just before Vespers, in the chapel. She was so full of her fury with Warwick and her worry for Harry that s
he scarcely thought to keep a safe distance from Owain. Or perhaps, she thought with vague misgiving, even as she rushed to him, she was really just using that tumult of feelings as an excuse to come too close to Owain and whisper with him. She put that thought aside; it was too unsettling.
‘That man is bad for Harry,’ she muttered tightly, kneeling beside him, so full of her feelings that she didn’t even care about interrupting his prayers. ‘I don’t want his peace of mind destroyed.’
Owain shook his head. He kept his eyes closed; his hands reverently folded. ‘Nothing you can do about Warwick,’ he whispered, as if in prayer. ‘Just watch and wait.’
Taking her cue from him, she put her own palms together and bowed her head. The door was propped open. The boys would be here in a minute. Owain was being discreet.
There was a joy even in this; in kneeling side by side like this.
‘But it frightens me,’ she went on, still in a whisper, after making sure there was no one in the doorway yet. ‘That howling noise he makes.’
She meant Harry. She couldn’t stop herself shivering as she said it. She glanced round again.
‘My father did it too,’ she went on, suddenly desperate to share this fear she’d been alone with for too long, ‘when he was …’
There was a rush of footsteps. Two youths hurried in, pushing, bright-eyed at each other and giggling under their breath: Oxford and Ormond. Shushing each other, bumping into things as they came, smelling of fresh greenery and rank horse sweat, they knelt behind Catherine.
She turned her eyes to her hands. But not before she’d noticed Owain’s one quick, bright, curious glance her way.
He came up behind her afterwards, in the throng jostling out towards supper. She could see the tight waves of Warwick’s dirty-blond hair safely up ahead. They boys were rushing towards their food, chattering eagerly in the failing light. No one was taking any notice of her.
Quietly, he said: ‘You mustn’t worry. Harry is not like your father.’
For a moment she began to turn towards him, wanting to see him say that, not just hear it. But he took her elbow and spun her quietly back; kept her walking. She kept listening. Owain’s reassuring voice was so low it was almost lost in the bright echo of boy talk. ‘He’s a perfectly normal little boy … a lovely child … a sensitive soul, that’s all.’ She glanced sideways. He sounded so certain. ‘Too sensitive to take naturally to Warwick’s schooling, perhaps … but there’s nothing mad about that.’ She nodded; beginning to feel relieved.
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