She only shrugged. The art had gone, she could see. Sold for the war, and no goldsmiths left in the quiet ruins of Paris to make more, either. The Louvre was like every other garrison now: empty and cheerless. But none of that mattered. Harry wouldn’t care that the statue wasn’t there. It was only a thing. And things, even beautiful things, didn’t matter if you were happy. Beauty wasn’t as important as love.
She didn’t care that the curtains in her room were disintegrating and the bed linen was patched. She didn’t care about the draughts where tapestries had been eaten away so badly that they must finally have been rolled up and thrown away; or about the bare halls with birds flying through.
‘Maman says France used to be the most beautiful country in the world, when she was a girl,’ Harry announced to Duke John. He looked round doubtfully. ‘A long time ago,’ he qualified.
Duke John looked worried at that, as if Catherine might start to complain that standards had slipped since her time. Vaguely, he scratched his temple. ‘The war,’ he said, rumpling Harry’s head with his big hand, ‘you see, my boy …’
But Catherine only laughed. Duke John was such a good man, she thought, as the Englishman fussed around, showing her to her rooms and Harry’s adjoining ones, and explaining where the Cardinal could be found, one flight up, with Owain in the adjoining rooms. He took great personal care to make sure she was content, asking if he could send for hot water for baths, inviting her to eat as soon as she was ready.
She touched his arm with her hand as she murmured, ‘Thank you, dear brother … from the bottom of my heart. You’ve thought of everything.’ It might have been only a pretty phrase in the mouths of many French noblewomen, but she could tell from the warmth of his awkward, touched, answering smile that he’d taken it as sincere. And she’d meant it. It didn’t matter in the least that everything was so shabby when he was so kind, so courteous – almost a Frenchman – and when, inside these bare walls, she felt happier than ever before.
Owain ran a tentative finger down her face, tracing a line from forehead to nose to mouth, over her chin, down the soft skin of her throat. It was the first time they’d made love since arriving from Rouen; it felt like a homecoming.
‘I’m sorry,’ she’d been saying. ‘I was such a fool. It seemed right to leave; but I can see now that I was wrong. And then I was so frightened you’d go … give up on me. I didn’t realise how much …’
She couldn’t finish.
‘I’d never,’ he muttered. ‘You shouldn’t have …’ Then he laughed with relief. There was no bitterness in him, no leftover anger. ‘You should have seen me. I practically forced the Cardinal up on his horse. He didn’t mind leaving Rouen – he was relieved to have an excuse, in fact – but he was all for a leisurely barge ride. Not the mad gallop I put him on, to get to Paris before you. I’ve never heard him complain so much.’
He kissed her softly on the lips again. She could still feel the doubt in him. ‘So,’ he whispered, ‘my Catherine again?’
‘Always,’ she muttered back, and there was no doubt in her.
He laughed, and there was more confidence in his body as he gathered her to him again.
Always. Even though there were maybe only months left, maybe weeks, even if the trees were bare and the wind howling and the palace they were embracing in was crumbling, she would still always have this moment to treasure in memory. Whatever she was granted would be enough, she thought, with a humility that felt new to her. She was blessed to have this much happiness.
It took another day or so – once enough private conversations had taken place, and baths been enjoyed, and fowls been consumed, and sleep caught up on – before Duke John even mentioned getting down to business. Then, rather hesitantly at supper, he asked his adult guests to meet the following morning to discuss plans for the coronation.
‘He looks nervous,’ Owain murmured to the Cardinal.
The Cardinal nodded thoughtfully. ‘Mm,’ he said. ‘Poor John … positively sheepish.’ He put an arm through Owain’s. ‘I’m pretty sure I know why, too,’ he confided. Then he sighed, and, with a tragicomic grimace, murmured, ‘Ah, the confusions of wartime.’
Owain had thought it might be the Cardinal who’d be looking nervous. Catherine had told him, months ago at Calais, about the letters from Duke Humphrey with their wild-sounding accusation that the Cardinal had stolen the English crown jewels. The Cardinal had never mentioned any of this to him; and no subsequent part of the Cardinal’s correspondence, at least the letters that Owain had had a part in composing, had referred to it. But Owain knew Catherine wouldn’t have made it up; that the Cardinal must be hiding some important question from even his own secretary. Owain had wondered whether the Cardinal might be expecting to be sent back to England once he’d reached journey’s end in Paris with the King; might have expected to face hostile questioning from Duke Humphrey, who must have had some trouble in mind to have started such an inflammatory rumour. But Duke John hadn’t seemed aware of any trouble; hadn’t mentioned any story about crown jewels. Owain thought he might not know the answer till they all got back to England; and maybe not even then. The Cardinal was the type to brazen out trouble. Even if he were worried, he wouldn’t let it show.
Duke John was an altogether more straightforward character. His worry always showed on his face. The problem, as the Cardinal saw it, was that Duke John didn’t know how to break to the Queen Mother the news that the coronation they would have to organise for Harry would, as Catherine had feared, be very different from the French coronation of tradition. Harry couldn’t be crowned in the traditional place, Reims, because Duke John’s forces couldn’t guarantee security; so it would have to be Paris. Harry wouldn’t have the traditional regalia. Poor Duke John still couldn’t find Charlemagne’s sword, Joyeuse, which was usually carried by a new King. Nor could he find the emperor’s crown, which was usually worn, or that of Saint Louis. He’d hunted high and low for nearly two years now, but they’d vanished from the armoury and from every other possible place they could have been put. Catherine knew all that already. But what she didn’t yet know was that even the ordo, the form of words usually used by French kings to swear themselves true to God, had become a mystery. No one knew the order of prayers and hymns and invocations. No one knew where they might be written down, either. Or no one admitted to knowing.
Tomorrow, Duke John would have to admit all this to Catherine. But, the Cardinal said, nodding his head gravely, the Queen Mother had made it clear from the start that she wanted no compromise. Only perfection would satisfy the French, she’d said. Otherwise there was no point.
‘He’s done his best,’ the Cardinal said. ‘I feel for him. It’s not altogether his fault. There is a war on. But what’s to be done? The Queen Mother has taken this rather … purist … stance. As you know.’ Delicately, he raised an eyebrow. ‘And although that didn’t appear to matter too much at the start of the journey, when she seemed rather more biddable, of course now she’s made her stand at Rouen … shown herself a woman of spirit! And we should all be pulling together … natural allies … no telling what might happen if quarrels were to begin … so naturally he’s alarmed.’
He gave Owain a half-humorous look. Owain nodded and said nothing. He could see that for as consummate a politician as the Cardinal to be making what amounted to an appeal for help, he must be very anxious indeed to make a success of organising the coronation. Owain guessed that the Cardinal believed his own welcome on his return to England must depend on it. Owain was also disturbed to realise that, since the Cardinal was making this appeal, it was clear that the Cardinal must believe him to have significant influence over Catherine. He didn’t like that. The Cardinal finished urbanely: ‘Well … we’ll just have to see what transpires.’
Owain wanted his master and kindly Duke John to reach the compromise they needed. In the back of his mind, a memory stirred. There was something he thought he could try.
The door to the Tower of Falconry, w
here the King’s library had been, where Owain remembered a big book containing the coronation ordo, was chained and locked, but that didn’t seem to matter. Half of the door itself had been bashed in. You could bend down and step through the hole, two planks wide.
Owain only realised how ruined it was once he’d done that. The air inside smelled mildewed and full of regrets. He could hear a dripping from somewhere on the wall. His torch reflected a shimmery glistening. There were birds or rats moving about somewhere above. There were puddles on the floor.
He shook his head, suddenly considerably less sympathetic to Duke John. War or no war, there was no reason, except catastrophically bad housekeeping and ignorance, to have let this treasure-trove of books get so wet. He could only hope the water was getting in from below, and the illuminated manuscripts above were safe. But it seemed likelier that part of the roof had come off and no one had bothered to mend it.
He went to the stone stairs. He climbed up carefully, letting his arms slide up the walls on both sides in case he slipped on the moisture underfoot. In the lowest of the reading rooms he stopped inside the door, slipped his torch into the wall sconce and looked around.
The smell was worse here. As his eyes got used to the gloom, he could see why. Entire shelves of toppled books were soaked and stuck together, sagging and sideways, in a chaos of animal skin and ink puddles and rot. Other books were on the floor where they’d fallen. The pages that survived were brittle and stiff. There was a squeaking all around. There must be mice nesting everywhere.
He stood, shaking his head, lost in the pity of it, appalled by the sheer ignorant carelessness that had done more damage than deliberate violence. He was thinking of the library at the Hotel Saint-Paul; the libraries of the Dukes of Orleans and Berri. There had been libraries at the University and libraries in the monasteries. Nothing so fine as this, but all of them repositories of beauty and memory, representing the thousands upon thousands of hours of thought from the men and women with the finest minds in the world, all intent on creating and preserving loveliness for the enjoyment of others … for the future … for children and grandchildren they would bequeath their knowledge to … and now lost, perhaps all of them. Lost.
He picked up the nearest book that he thought wouldn’t crumble in his hands. Half an illustrated page came soggily away. A knight; a lady. A blurry border that had once shown red and gold roses. Owain made out the knowing, mischievous words: ‘After all these efforts, when I finally approached the rose bush, so close I could stretch out my hands as I’d yearned to for so long, and pluck the rosebud from the branches, Fair Welcome started praying to God that I would do the rosebud no outrage, and I promised him solemnly, because he begged me and insisted, that I wouldn’t do anything now that wasn’t both her will and mine …’
It nearly made him laugh. It was the lascivious, nudging, winking last page of the Romance of the Rose: the book whose lewd suggestiveness had so alarmed Christine and set her off on her defence of women. He dropped it. But he thought even Christine might have felt regret to see a book – even this one, which she’d so hated – destroyed so carelessly.
He shivered. This place felt and smelt unclean. He wanted to grieve for the end of that dream of civilisation and beauty that Paris had once been. He wanted to get away.
He took the torch down.
He’d reached the top of the stairs before he remembered to check for the big blue book of the coronation ordo. It was on the floor, under two other books, but they’d melted together: a thick wet heap of decay. The pages wouldn’t separate, they just clumped together and tore. It was hopeless.
Owain went downstairs, tight-faced. Now he really knew that the Paris of his youth was dead.
He was surprised at Catherine’s calm. Sleepily, peaceably, she muttered, ‘Well, now we know, we can tell Duke John to mend the roof. He didn’t mean any harm. And it’s a great pity about the ordo. But some of the other books will dry out.’
‘But,’ he said, and his body was still holding on to the tightness of the memory, ‘so much will still be lost.’ He hadn’t expected this indifference from her. She’d been the one who’d wanted the coronation just right.
She put an arm heavy with sleep over his chest. She murmured: ‘We’ve spent so long away … we were so young when we were here. It’s all golden in our minds … we only remember how lovely Paris was, how civilised … but, perhaps … it wasn’t, not really, was it?’
He thought of walking down Saint Anthony Street with Christine on his first evening, and seeing a sunset and cherry blossom over walls, and bright clean white turrets rising up to the sky, as fine as needles, as intricately worked as lace. Yes, he thought passionately, grieving for its passing, that was loveliness.
She kissed him. ‘I didn’t have you then,’ she muttered drowsily. He could hardly make out the last words she mumbled as she drifted back into sleep. He thought she said: ‘So now is better.’
Morning brought a biting wind that howled through the streets outside, blowing hats off and knocking at shutters and doors like the undead.
They gathered around the table again, with a couple of scriveners at a lower table to take notes of their plans. Duke John sat uncomfortably, scratching at himself, looking ashamed, and letting the Cardinal, sitting just in front of Owain, do all the talking.
Catherine listened quietly. Duke John kept stealing uncertain glances at her.
‘… so a traditional French ceremony is out of the question,’ Cardinal Beaufort said brightly at the end of the litany of misfortunes. He leaned forward and his eyes were alight with enthusiasm. If Owain hadn’t known better he’d have said the Cardinal was bringing her good news, not bad. ‘However, that may be for the best,’ the Cardinal swept on. ‘Because, as we all know, this is no longer the France of tradition. So it might be more fruitful to think of devising a new form of ceremony – one that reflects the marriage of our two kingdoms – one that shows the people of France how things are now.’
‘Yes,’ Catherine said.
‘It could take place in Paris, for instance,’ the Cardinal continued, so intent on the persuasive case he was making that he seemed not to have heard Catherine agree.
‘Yes,’ Catherine said.
‘With a revised form of words …’
‘Yes,’ Catherine said.
‘… and, mm, revised regalia.’
‘Yes,’ Catherine said, and Owain could hear now that there was a trace of humour in her voice. ‘Dear Uncle,’ then she turned to Duke John, ‘dear brother. Please. I agree. I was wrong. We must have been working for, hoping for, the wrong thing. An old-style French coronation would be wrong. Let’s do something different, as you suggest.’ And she smiled rather dreamily at the astonishment and relief flooding their faces.
‘Thank you,’ Duke John said, and tentatively bowed his head. They could all hear the depth of the gratitude in his voice.
Later, when they were alone, Owain said, ‘Everyone’s a little scared of you now.’
‘Yes,’ she said, sounding surprised. ‘I saw that.’
‘You did the right thing today, by giving way so graciously,’ he went on.
She nodded again. She said, still in that dreamy, accepting voice: ‘I wanted to make them happy. I could see how much it mattered to them. And they’ve been kind to me.’ After a while, she added: ‘In any case, there was nothing else to do, was there? What I wanted, thought I wanted – before – wasn’t meant; I see that now. Now I’m here I can see that France isn’t what I remember any more; this doesn’t feel anything like where I spent my childhood. It’s just a place I can be with you and Harry for a while longer. So … if the Charlemagne treasures have been stolen and we can’t have a real French coronation … I suppose that must be God’s will. We’ll just have to make do.’
She paused, then shook that melancholy thought away. She even laughed.
‘Anyway,’ she added, sounding, Owain thought, extraordinarily unworried, ‘it will still take months befo
re those two work out what kind of coronation we can have.’ And she snuggled tighter into his arms, clinging to him, perhaps imagining them having a crown made, or sending to England for one, or consulting bishops as to the right form of words for a French crowning. ‘We still have time.’
He could see, for a moment, that she really did want time – all the time she could still borrow, or steal. He was relieved at that, at least. Sometimes this new passivity of hers seemed like indifference; as if she’d given up.
But even Catherine was surprised by Cardinal Beaufort’s swift next move. She hadn’t bargained for his chess-player’s mind.
He called another coronation planning meeting for the next afternoon. He was already in the room, wearing a pleased, slightly furtive smile, when Catherine walked in. He had two men waiting to open a box waiting on the table.
Catherine recognised the box as one of the ones the Cardinal had travelled with from England. She’d seen it unloaded at every dock and stable along the way: a big rough lump of a thing, made of cheap oak, studded with nails. As soon as Catherine was seated, Duke John gestured for the box to be opened. The men prised the lid away with a rough blade. There were grunts, and the creak of wood as it came up.
Once the lid was gone, Duke John stepped forward and looked. Inside were many layers of old grey woollen blankets. Placidly, Catherine waited. Duke John pulled out a smaller box; equally roughly made. He looked at the lock. ‘Henry,’ he said, and, with a look of intense concentration that Catherine didn’t think the task merited, the Cardinal fiddled at his belt, found the key, stepped forward and opened the lock.
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