Wife to Henry V: A Novel

by Hilda Lewis

  So she and Owen and the child lived their simple life. Had she thought herself happy the day she had married the English King? Or the day they had crowned her? Or the day her first child was born? She had never known happiness until now.

  * * *

  The quiet winter passed, there were intimations of spring; small rivers swollen with melted snows rushed over pebbled brooks.

  Orléans held out still. But the defenders were tired men and food was scarce. Soon there would be none at all except what could be smuggled into the city—a dangerous and bloody business.

  It was not until the middle of February that news came to Talybolion of the last disaster to the stricken city. Convoys with food for starving Orléans—herring and other lenten fare guarded like crown jewels—had fallen into English hands.

  “Now the Orléanais must give way or starve to death,” Catherine said. “Now, now it is the end.”

  “There's more to a man than filling his own belly,” Tudor told her but she would not have it. Isabeau had written that the cause of the Dauphin was lost, utterly lost; now all fear from Philip was over. She showed Tudor the letter.

  ...my dutiful son is trying for peace-at-any-price with Philip; and Philip, we all know, is not one to ally himself with the losing side. Save for a miracle—and why should heaven work one for him?—Charles will have to fly. Scotland, as I hear, is the one spot left. My dear son in Scotland! I wish the Scots joy of him...

  England's cause swung high, high. News from France lost some of its urgency for her; she had intimations of more urgent news of her own. By the end of March she suspected she was pregnant. She was filled with pleasure that she might be bearing her love a second child. And this time there would be nothing to fear. She was safe in this kind country; she would keep her child. If she were truly pregnant she would regard it as a sign that Heaven recognized her marriage and blessed it.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  Strange stories were coming from France; but it was not until mid-April that they reached Talybolion. They were everywhere, seeding themselves like thistles, springing into monstrous growths that would shut out the heavens themselves—if you let them, Catherine said. She did not intend to let them!

  A girl—a lunatic. And dressed as a man, full armour, no less; and offering to lead the armies of France; and promising victory to Charles, Charles even now packing bag and baggage for Scotland!

  Isabeau had written pouring out her coarse abuse.

  ...an ignorant slut from the country marching with the men, shameless in armour that but points the way to her woman's body, which, no doubt, she knows well enough to use...

  Johanne had written, too.

  ...whether the girl be saint or plain mad, who knows? But in France the time is ripe for such a saint; and she will serve...

  Walking the April garden Catherine was inclined to take the matter at Isabeau's valuation; but Tudor, with Welsh mysticism, could not shut out the possibility that the girl was a saint. How else had she won over the Captain of Vaucouleurs, a man with a head as hard as gunstone; not at all a man to risk making a laughing-stock of himself? Surely, that in itself, was a little miracle?

  “Not if the wench is shameless enough and handsome enough!”

  “A shameless wench might get more out of a man than she looks for—but never men-at-arms for her protection. As for her looks, the girl's no beauty, I hear. No, it's something quite other. Divine simplicity or devil's subtlety. Or perhaps something as rare as either—plain common sense. Who knows? The captain asks her what would be her first move, supposing he helped her in this extraordinary affair. And what does she answer? To relieve Orléans. And then—Orléans relieved—what is her next step? She will take her King, her wretched King of Bourges skulking now in Chinon and crown him in Rheims.”

  She went so white at that he feared she might fall. His arm went round her; but, petulant, she thrust him away.

  “To get my brother out of Chinon, that would certainly be a miracle! To get him within danger-shot of Orléans, an even greater miracle. As for Rheims—to get him there would be the greatest miracle of all. No, my friend, I'll tell you what will happen—it needs no miracle to prophesy. She will make herself the laughing-stock of Christendom. And she will go back to her village wherever it is and—if she's lucky—be teased as a mad thing for the rest of her days. But—if she is not lucky! Let a cow dry up or a child dwindle, let her but cherish her cat—and her end will be less pleasant.”

  “It isn't as simple as that!” He took her hand, and made her sit upon a bench—she could be two months pregnant. “The girl is most shrewd, most subtle. He, the Captain of Vaucouleurs, asked her why she, untaught, and ignorant, should consider herself the Saviour of France. And what does she answer? Because of the old prophecy. France has been ruined by a woman...”

  “There is such a prophecy,” she said. Suddenly the fire was in her cheeks, “She means...she dares to mean...my mother. She will die for this, and not prettily. My mother will see to it!”

  “The prophecy is not yet finished; it goes on...And saved by a woman.”

  “Meaning herself?”

  “Who else? The prophecy specifies the woman. The Saviour of France will be a virgin from the hoary woods.”

  “The girl is slyer, wickeder than I thought.” And once I fancied I might be that savior, I who am nothing...nothing at all. “She comes from a district of old, old trees. But...a virgin?” She began to laugh. “Eighteen did you say? And from the country? You would be hard put to it to find a virgin of that age in the country.”

  “The girl is untouched; a council of women have satisfied themselves.”

  “Yet another miracle,” Catherine laughed again. “But it will take a greater one than that to satisfy my brother.”

  “She has satisfied him. She'd never seen him in his life; and yet, she went straight over and picked him from among the rest.”

  “No miracle in that. Everybody knows about his great head and spindle legs. Besides, let her hesitate—and he'd help her with a nod, a wink. He's so conceited he couldn't endure not to be known at once.”

  “I wish I'd been there,” Tudor said as though he had not heard. “It was a thing to see! The girl kneeling and addressing her dear and gentle Dauphin.”

  “To be called Dauphin again, that must have given him quite a jolt! That was clever I admit—if it wasn't sheer ignorance.”

  “It was not ignorance. Devil's wit or Divine guidance—which you will! I think God spoke to her, for she took him aside and whispered a secret that had been troubling him all his life.”

  “A secret!” And now she laughed for the third time. “No need of God whispering what all Christendom knows—my mother was over-free with my Uncle of Orléans. I was the first to put it into Charles' head. He'd come on a visit—and his mother-in-law had been spoiling him abominably. He was quite insufferable with his whining and his sly pinching and his selfishness and his greed. And conceit—swollen with it! Son of the King of France brought up in the little court of Anjou. I couldn't help pricking the bladder. I told him he was probably a bastard. You ought to have seen his face! I had to laugh. Well, it was time he knew. Everyone had been whispering it from the day he was born—before even. And you talk of a saint knowing his secret thoughts. A saint sent by God to whisper an old scandal! It could only have worked with a fool like Charles. The girl's mad.”

  “In this country of mine,” he said, “we could believe her a saint.”

  “Saint!” Her pretty face had gone hard. “A saint egging on ignorant folk to break the sworn oath, the oath of Troyes; egging on my brother to snatch at what's not his to take; yes, and to spill innocent blood into the bargain. Well, let her bawl her loudest. Our brother of Bedford will deal with her. Take Charles to Rheims and crown him, the ugly fool! The people have only to set eyes on Harry to know their true King. So beautiful, so good...”

  “Were he the Lord Jesus Himself still the French would not accept him. Why should they bend beneath the Eng
lish yoke? It's a yoke whose bitterness I know. I am a soldier. My blood has watered the dear soil of my country. And so it is with all true men, Welsh or French.”

  “But the treaty, my marriage treaty...”

  “A shameful thing, that treaty, though it's treason to say so. Let us say only, dear heart, that your brother did not sign it. Let us say, too, that your father was sick when he signed away his son's rights and knew not what he did. My dear, my love, put, I beseech you, the treaty out of your mind. England cannot hold France any more than she held Scotland...or Ireland, or my own country. That is the thing you must reckon with.”

  “There's but one thing we need reckon with,” she said, “and that's my brother. There's a character that does not change, He will sit in Chinon, a fainéant, playing kings to the end of time.”

  * * *

  Her reckoning was out.

  The girl from the ancient woods had awakened the fainéant; his armies were on the march. On the point of surrender, Orléans stiffened, held on. She had roused all France, split it in two. God's Virgin some called her, flocking to her standard, her white standard, where Jesus stood among the lilies. A limb of Satan others said. She should burn, Burgundy swore it; he and Bedford shook hands upon it.

  To Talybolion, as ever, news came late. June was fresh with budding roses before they heard the full tale of English disaster.

  Orléans stood triumphant within her walls. Early in May the English had abandoned the siege. Left in a hurry, the messenger said.

  “Seven months besieged,” Catherine said, only half-believing. “All our captains and our armies ringing the city round about, the starving, hopeless city. Seven long months. And she, within seven days, raises the siege and sends us flying.” She turned from the kneeling messenger to Tudor. “You and your talk of saints! The thing reeks of witchcraft.”

  “The devil looks to his own,” the messenger told her. “The witch has been wounded—foot and back.”

  “In God is our help,” she said; only to have her hopes dashed. The witch was whole again.

  “The girl is clearly the devil's paramour,” Catherine said.

  Tudor let her talk, and held his peace. Certainly there was something strange about the girl. If God was not her Master then surely the devil was!

  * * *

  Defeat after defeat.

  Tudor tried to keep the messengers from Catherine, to save her the worst of the news; but she would have it all.

  Jargeau had fallen to the witch; and Beauregency, the great castle. The English had retreated, orderly, to Patay that strong town. The French captain had hesitated to attack; but she, the paramour of Satan, had driven them on.

  He had feared for Catherine—bad news upon bad news, and she four months gone with child. He need have no fears, she was all Isabeau.

  “The devil may look to his own,” she said when she heard that Patay had fallen and the English dead and dying beyond telling. “But it cannot last. The devil cannot stand against God.”

  He mistook simplicity for courage; loved her for it and told her so.

  “Courage?” she said. “What need of courage? France cannot be lost. My husband won it, under God, by sword and by treaty. Whoever forgets that, God remembers.”

  The sweet summer moved on; a summer heavy with sun and blossom. In her garden at Talybolion, Catherine moved languid, heavy with child.

  Towards the end of July she had news that, for all her belief, made her cry out. Not all the defeat of English arms nor the loss of cities had moved her so; she was shaken to the soul.

  Charles had been crowned in Rheims.

  The witch had dragged him, all be-spelled with the glory of Patay, to Rheims. Now he was truly crowned, in the crowning-place of Kings. Now all France would accept him—the true King. It was but a question of time, she said, the soft and drooping Valois mouth all drawn and bitter.

  “God,” she said, twisting and wringing her hands, “God, for this the witch must burn!”

  It was horrible to Tudor the way she said it, gently as praying.

  “Burn, burn, burn,” she said it softly again and again. She looked a little crazy, he thought, all sly with her whispering to God.

  “Have you ever seen a man burn?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Why should I?”

  “God forbid that you should. It is not a thing I would wish you to see...or any man.”

  “He is no man,” she flashed, “that has no stomach to punish the enemies of God. My husband was not so nice; God's enemies were his enemies; he knew how to deal with them.”

  It was the first time she had taunted him with the splendour that had been her husband. But it was not this that troubled him now; it was the shocking harshness of eye and voice. He would have calmed her, gentled her if he could—she was bearing his child. But she would not be gentled.

  “If a man must burn to save his soul, why then he must burn! Yes,” and she was spiteful still, “and others be man enough to watch!”

  “To watch,” he said, “see a human body burn...flesh and blood like yours, like mine...skin burst and shrivel, flesh blacken, blood boil. And the smell. Dear Saviour, the smell of a man's pain, a man's agony.”

  “It needs a man, I grant; a full man!” And she could feel how his compassion exacerbated the bitterness within her. Quarrel with him she must, rid herself of the poison, heal herself. Though she killed their love with her insults, she could not, would not stop herself.

  “You are one to blind yourself with words,” she cried out, wondering that she could so hurt him, glad that she could so hurt him. “But Henry. There was a man, there was a King! He told me once how he had stood by and seen a man burn and let a man burn—and only a boy himself! Do you suppose it was easy for him? He was no priest but a soldier; easier for him by far to kill a man quick and clean with his sword. But he stood fast; and for that God remembered him—His Soldier. The man cried out from the fire and the prince called to them to release the man. So they brought him forth all charred by the fire; and the prince besought him to remember his God while yet there was time and to recant and his life would be spared. But the fellow, heretic to the last and obstinate with devil's pride, refused. And so...” she shrugged.

  “Back to the fire again?” And he could hardly believe it even of Henry, that righteous burner of heretics.

  “The body; not the soul,” she said.

  He tried to speak and could not for sickness in the tale.

  “And God,” he said at last, “so we are told, made us in His Image.” He looked at her, at Catherine his own dear love. “You find such...such beastliness good?”

  “Good enough for God's Soldier.”

  “Beware how you take the name of God!” He was a little stern. “As for the King—he was a great man. But for all that there were things in which, as you say, he was not nice. He took the road straight before him and would not, when he might, step aside, no not for all the blood. Brave? Yes; indeed, yes. But he lacked the inward eye.”

  “You with your inward eye! You would rob my son of his crown. Praise God there are not more like you!” And she turned and walked quickly away for all her burden and would not stop for all his pleading. Nor would she speak with him nor eat with him. But night found her gentle again. “There is but one place for you, cruel heart,” he said.

  * * *

  Catherine no longer received the messengers. In Wales she was safe; but her swelling figure told its tale...and gossip has winged feet. Now Tudor brought letters and news to the Queen's chamber.

  The crowning in Rheims had certainly been a master-stroke. Wherever Charles appeared, city gates were thrown open; the people ran before him scattering flowers and crying out, Noël, Noël.

  “And Burgundy?” she asked at once. “Does he cry out Noël, too?”

  “In his own way—as you may suppose. Greetings, congratulations...”

  “A foot in both camps.” She tried to shrug.

  “So it has always been. But now, more open. We
ll, between two stools a man may fall.”

  “Not Burgundy,” she said.

  The crowning in Rheims had set her fretting, to wish her lying-in over, to be in London, to catch the news as it came. She was not easy to live with these days. She loved him; but she was no longer content to play queen to his king. She was a Queen.

  News came in steadily. Victory, victory for the French arms.

  “It cannot last,” Catherine said. “How can it last? The girl's army marches on corn in the ear, on green beans.”

  Tudor did not tell her that they marched on hope, too. He did not tell her, either, that Bedford, that great captain, did not underestimate the girl. Limb of the Fiend he called her, acknowledging her powers, albeit dark.

  The witch had bespelled her fainéant to march on Paris.

  It was early August before they heard the news in Wales. Now Catherine could no longer hide her fears. “Paris,” she said. “But Paris...”

  “Paris is well-fortified,” Tudor told her. “My lord of Bedford is there with great forces; and my lord Cardinal Beaufort with his own private army—and not a small one, neither. What a soldier is this priest! You need not fear for Paris. Besides, there's a thing you've forgotten. She's got to get her laggard there.”

  Now messengers were riding in quickly with news of Charles' northward march; Laon, Château Thierry, Provins—all fallen to his hand. And everywhere the same old story—Charles greeted with flowers, with the bent knee, with the oath of allegiance, with the cry Noël, Noël.

  “Soissons,” Catherine said and caught her breath. “Charles is at Soissons. It's a short and open road to Paris.”