by Hilda Lewis
Guillemote came to undress her for the night.
“Leave me alone!” She pulled herself from the fingers at the backlacing of her gown; and then, seeing the hurt in the woman's face, cried out, “I am like any other woman!” And added quickly lest she be misunderstood—or too clearly understood—”I have my hands at least!” And held out her long, fine hands, bare save for the great jewel of her betrothal.
Guillemote made her reverence and was gone.
Catherine went over to the window again; could not, it seemed, take her eyes from the darkness without, nor her mind from those who might be at love-play beneath its wings. It was intolerable this licence within the Queen's household!
The stone walls, the hanging tapestries of her room held heat as in a cooking-pot.
And then, before she knew well what she was about—a cloak snatched from the press, her face hooded and shadowed—she was running through room after room, running down the stairs. Why she had hidden her face, or why she must hurry she did not know. Impulse whipped her onward.
In the dark, except where a cresset flung its dying flame, in the shifting play of light and shadow all was silent. Courting and love-play were not to be found upon these narrow stairs. She did not know this staircase, had never set foot upon it in her life. Narrow and mean, it must lead to the kitchens. Very well! To the bottom she would go, would see for herself how the creatures behaved.
In the great kitchens all was quiet; no love-making here. Men lay snoring upon the dirty rushes; the old familiar smell of men and dogs and stale food, rose heavy. For the moment she was the little Catherine again, come to beg a meaty bone to still the gnawing in her belly; the next—the smell was too much for her fastidious nose. She passed quickly through the vast rooms, the endless sculleries, half-feeling her way in the stink of dying tallow candles, stumbled along a narrow passage dark as Hades, and so out through an unlatched door.
A door unlatched! She would send for the steward in the morning.
The stars were bright, pricking in the dark blue; after the stench of the kitchens the smell of roses came sweet. She stepped upon the grass; dew lapped cool upon bare ankles above the soft leather shoes.
Suddenly she froze. Someone waited there in the darkness. Terror told her so. Herself scarce daring to breathe, she heard the hard quick breaths as though someone had run hard or was taken with impatience.
Go forward she dared not; and...if she turned her back?
The matter was settled for her.
From the darkness a figure leapt, flung both arms about her, held her close. She felt her cheek against the hardness of a man's breast.
For the moment her wanton blood desired nothing but to stand so, heart against beating heart. The mad moment died. She stiffened where she stood.
“Sweetheart, I thought you would never come!”
She knew the soft Welsh sing-song.
She was swept by so fierce an anger she thought she must die of it. She—the Queen! And this low fellow, this jumped-up squire mistaking her for some serving-wench!
It was as though she bled inwardly; as though, weakened by this bleeding, she could not stir. Her anger turned back upon herself where she stood swooning like any wanton, waiting for his mouth to come down upon hers.
Something was amiss; he knew it. Agnes was soft as wax beneath his hands—a hot slut, she took her love-making easily. But this one was rigid as a rod; he could feel her heart knocking against her stiffened breast like a wild bird, new-caged.
It was not Agnes. It was someone else, someone who had sought this meeting, bribing Agnes perhaps. It had happened before—Agnes was easy in her love. One of the women he hadn't noticed, taken by his looks, perhaps; or by his position, thinking perhaps the Queen's steward might do well by a friend. She had come running; and now she was scared, scared as a small creature in the claws of a hawk; he had seen them just so frozen with terror.
He found the situation piquant. He was pricked as never before; not with Agnes, nor with any of the girls he had taken for his easy love-making, nor for any of his fine ladies, either. He would taste her lips—at least so much he deserved. She had, after all, come seeking him! The heat of a man's lips, the warmth of a man's body, had been known to work wonders with prudes.
“Your lips, your lips, sweetheart!” And he was panting; it was long since any woman had so stirred him. “You are not come from the grave, my love, for all your coldness. The heart of the dead is quiet; but your heart betrays you.”
And when still she stood within his arms, stiff as the dead, cold as the dead—except for the frightened beating of her heart, he laughed a little. And suddenly, with no warning, his hand was upon her hood. But she was swifter.
And now it began, the silent struggle between them.
If nothing else, her face he would see, her lips kiss. And she? She would die rather than yield her face to his eyes, her lips to his mouth.
He caught at the hand clutching the cloak that shielded the face. A long, white hand. One of the Queen's ladies? The glint of a jewel. Agnes after all! The Queen had given her a ring lately. Yes, Agnes playing one of her games, Agnes playing coy!
He was piqued at the strangeness of her behaviour, angered at the baulking of his desire. He tore at the shielding hand. Quicker again, she snatched it from him, flung it before her shadowed face. He heard the blow strike against her cheek...sharp jewel against soft cheek.
She took the blow in silence. Certainly not Agnes!
And then, before he knew it, she had wrenched herself away and was skimming like a dark bird over the dew-wet grass.
He was half-minded to follow her. Intrigued he was and piqued; but pride held him. He wanted no unwilling slut, not he! No need to go a-hunting; he took his women where he would...But there had been something about her. She had been torn by conflict—between hard pride and the heat of desire. He was too knowledgeable in the art of love to mistake it.
And it had not been Agnes. Agnes was well enough; but he had touched beauty beneath the dark cloak—the long, slender limbs, the high, small breasts.
There could not be many like her here in Windsor; he would find her yet.
* * *
Guillemote exclaimed aloud at the Queen's face; at the long scratch running red and angry from eye to mouth.
“So I am not as other women after all,” the Queen said lightly. “I am more careless, more stupid. My gown I managed, even the lacings; and my hair, every pin. But the ring I forgot. I went to bed with my ring! The heat, I suppose. I'm always stupid, as you know, in the heat; and the night was hot—hot as I can remember. There I was, tossing and turning the night through. I must have scratched myself in my sleep.”
Her toilet finished, she kept Guillemote talking.
...de Coucy. The Queen desired her to sing tonight, after supper. The Queen herself would accompany the girl on the lute. And Troutbeck. She had a man's wit over the chessboard; the Queen desired to study a new gambit. And Agnes...
She called Agnes by her baptismal name, Guillemote noted, a little jealous.
...the girl's best gown was somewhat shabby. Let Guillemote bid the steward give her another.
“He'll give her more than a new gown—if she isn't careful!” Guillemote said.
She had got her answer. She said nothing, beyond desiring Guillemote to request that Tudor be told to serve the Queen at meat; he, and no other.
Guillemote took the strange request in silence. To serve on his knees like any little page or green esquire, he, Master Tudor! How would the steward take that?
* * *
The Queen sat in the great chair at dinner. Her face was as white as her gown. The scratch upon her cheek showed red as the ruby upon her breast.
Owen Tudor came the length of the hall; behind him the pages each with his dish. He strode easy as a king, Catherine thought; she heard, behind her, Agnes sigh her desire.
He came nearer; stopped dead; saw the Queen, the great scratch like some fantastic jewel upon her ch
eek; caught from her steady eyes the indifference of her face.
Behind her indifference she searched his face. Had he paled? She thought so. It was so small a paling she could not well be sure. How long had he stood there motionless? Time seemed endless; and she could not be sure of that, either.
He made a step forward, bowed to the Queen; took a dish—and his hands were steady, she could not question that! Now he knelt upon his knee, serving her humble as the greenest page.
She kept her eyes steady; she found fault with the dish—the meat too highly-spiced—a small fault. Her voice was quiet, friendly even; he was subtle enough to read in her gentle questioning of the food, her royal displeasure.
* * *
He was kneeling before her once more though she had not sent for him. And now there was no mistaking his pallor. It was, though she could not know it, the sign of a man's gentleness and not all at of his fear.
“I have wounded the Queen,” he said, “and for that I should die.”
She said nothing. A scratch upon the cheek is a small thing; but the wound upon the heart. She showed neither grace nor anger; punished him with her sovereign indifference.
“You must send me away,” he said.
The heart turned over in her breast. She sat there, unmoving. And all the time she was remembering—remembering the tormented night because of the feel of his hands upon her breasts; and because her whole body had lain open to his desire. Again she sickened with pride, because, for one moment, she had desired this low fellow. Her heart rose in quick reproach at that. He was a gentleman, however poor. But for one thing pride could not acquit her. She had desired the leavings of one of her own women.
“I cannot stay in the place where I have wounded my Queen,” he said.
“Which queen?” she asked stupid with pride and could have bitten the tongue in her head.
She rose from her chair and left him kneeling like a fool in the empty room.
* * *
She had ordered Agnes home. She could not endure to see the mouth that had taken his kisses, nor the body that had taken his body. She had dismissed the girl from her presence, heaping upon her the insult she felt for herself; she was stiff and bitter with her Valois pride.
Tudor came bearing himself humbly, entreating kindness for the girl. Agnes was all bewildered with her disgrace, he said. What had she done but what others had done...and still did?
What Agnes had done lay unspoken between them.
He went on entreating. Agnes implored that, at least, she might say Farewell to the Queen, ask forgiveness for a disgrace she did not understand. It was a hard thing for him, she knew, to come thus shamefully entreating for a cast-off love, entreating to the new.
The old love and the new; that was the unspoken thing that festered in her. Shamefully to entreat, shamefully to be refused; it was his punishment.
“In my mother's house,” she told him, “the slut would have paid for her wantonness with her life.” And so betrayed herself. Isabeau set no store on chastity, the whole of Christendom knew it; she would punish no wantonness unless it clashed with her own.
He looked at her, his proud Queen, all bitter beneath the pain of love.
* * *
Between them no word. There needed none. The air between them was filled with trumpets. Tormented by desire, she shut her heart to the sound. A word, the breath of a word—and disgrace; Gloucester watched; watched and waited. She had carried herself, so far, with circumspection; but he was not without hope and she knew it. That once she had stood his friend in the game of love would not count. She had shown friendship to the Beauforts and for that she should pay. She had used plain speaking about the Cobham and for that she should pay—the dark witch would see to it. Let the Queen's foot slip ever so little and he would disgrace her in the eyes of Christendom...in the eyes of her young son.
The Queen disgraced and her lover hanged.
Her heart shrivelled to a pea...His head, his noble head, the hazel eyes quick-glancing, changing with every sweet mood—gentleness and pity and a man's true pride; the sensuous curve of lips that made her faint with longing; the strong jaw that had won her unwilling—her how unwilling!—respect. If, for love of her, his beauties were given to the crow and raven, what did she care for her own disgrace?
But...disgrace. Disgrace for Catherine that had been wife to Henry of England, that was mother to the King. Isabeau’s daughter they would say, smearing her with their laughter.
And suddenly she remembered a thing she had thought forgotten; how one of Isabeau's lovers had died—the young de Bourdon. Her mother had not cared at all, except that so humble a name had been linked with her own. She had laughed at him for a fool when she heard of his bitter death in the Seine water. She had not—she faced it now—her mother's iron strength. If through loving her, Tudor came to his death, then she must desire death, too. And yet, was that the truth? Disgrace is hateful but it does not last forever. Death, violent, shameful death is more hateful still...and death lasts forever.
She carried her love and her fear within her own heart; it was heavy with the burden. There was no-one to whom she could speak. Johanne was wise; but this wild love she would not understand. Always with Johanne head governed heart. Even as a girl she would never have mingled the proud blood of Navarre with blood less proud.
More than once she dreamed of Michelle, Michelle who had thought the Lancaster marriage not good enough for the house of Valois, not though she had seen the world on its knees before the bride of Henry of England. In her dream Michelle cried out, A low fellow. Will you mix your blood, the royal blood of Trance with his?
No, she would tell Michelle, No. And she would lie weeping till dawn.
These days she did not see Tudor at all; and the loss of her companion was as heavy as the loss of her love. She never sent for him and he never came. It was a clerk, instead, pale with respect for Madam the Queen, who brought the news from London, from France; who came to tell her of the woollen cloth arrived from Flanders or the silks from France. As for cloth-of-gold or jewels she rarely thought of them now—there was no-one to care how she looked; she was lost and alone.
* * *
It was dusk in the Queen's chamber when, unbidden still, he stood before her at last. He had lost some of his handsome flesh; he looked like a man hag-ridden. But for all that there was no bending, no beseeching. He spoke as a man speaks to a woman, a man who acknowledges no woman his equal.
“You may have me hanged or you must let me go. I care not which,” he said. “For this I cannot and will not endure.”
She did not pretend to misunderstand, though there had been not one word of love between them.
“What am I to do?” she said and held her hands a little before her as though entreating his help. He saw she no longer wore the great ring of her betrothal. Even in that moment he wondered, like the faithful steward he was, whether it was in safe keeping.
“Send me away,” he said again. “Or hang me. And that, I think, is the kinder death. For away from the sight of your face I must die...a long and bitter dying.”
She spoke no word at that; but her face was a tell-tale.
“There can be nothing between us,” he told her, “neither marrying nor the simple taking of love.”
“Because I am a Queen?” she said. “Because you...?” and could not, for very love, finish.
“Because you are a Queen,” he said. “But not because I am your servant. I am the son of Kings, the ancient Kings. Cadwallader, High King of Britain, was my forbear; Owen Glendower, Prince of Wales, is my cousin. My blood is as good as your own. A man of Wales may be your servant today and beget princes tomorrow.”
The blood came flying into her face at that, desire ran naked in her eyes.
“But servant or prince, it is all one,” he said, “and you must let me go.”
She leaned against the wall for weakness. “We will talk of this again,” she said.
“Time cannot alter it. Now or
later, it is all one.”
She said, and her head was low, the proud head that had worn a crown, “Now...is now.”
No more than she, did he pretend to misunderstand. Had she offered herself lightly, or even with pride, he would have taken her. But the bent head lent her an innocent air and he could not take her with that virginal look. And though his blood cried out so that in that moment he would have died if he might first slake his need, still he could not take her.
“For you it could be prison; death perhaps,” he said, and was gone.
* * *
Had he sought deliberately to ensnare her with refusal, to exacerbate her passion and her pride, he could have done no better. She was wretched and tormented; and there was no way out.
He was right. There could be no talk of marriage between them. Humphrey would see her dead first. As for herself, in less passionate moments, she could not but agree with her brother-in-law; she could not consent thus to disgrace herself. So great a lady stoop to so poor a gentleman. Let him claim the blood of long-dead kings, he was still a servant and she a Valois.
For a husband she could not, would not take him. But, for a lover? Handsome and brave, schooled to every courtesy; a strong arm and a gentle heart—what more could the proudest lady in the land look for in a lover?
She made herself beautiful for him. She wore white, white only, that he might think of her virginal, untouched. When she sent for him to her chamber she removed the great headdress, set the chestnut locks free so that she looked a maid.
He did not seem to notice. Grave, respectful, he was her humble servant; no more.
But her women noticed; noticed the strange excitement in the brilliant eyes, the grey darkening to tell-tale purple; noticed the whiteness of her cheeks so that the mouth showed softer, redder, fuller. She looked both fine-drawn and voluptuous; she had an exalted yet tormented look.
She knew they gossiped about her, asking each other their stupid questions. Did the Queen take the lack of her child too hard? Did she miss the life of the court where she had been shown, only too plainly, there was little place for her? Was some marriage being arranged that she could not endure? Was the Queen...in love?
