Ignoring that disrespectful last remark, she said with no great warmth, "It's too soon to think of marriage. The memory of my husband is still as dear to me as that of my cousin's wife, long dead in France, is to him." She nodded in the direction of Charles of Orleans, moving by in the dance with Jacqueline of Hainault.
"Lovely girl, that," Humphrey said inconsequentially, and to Catherine's amazement he seemed to be literally licking his lips as his eyes followed Jacqueline of Hainault. "One of the finest. I hope that Frenchman isn't thinking..." and he glowered at Charles of Orleans.
Was there no difference between the way the English treated princes of the noblest blood in Christendom and the contemptuous way they might behave to slaves and whores? She shook her head brightly, as if Humphrey's idea was absurd but charming, but inside she couldn't help the stirring of anger at his disrespect.
Then, gently disentangling herself, she added, "If my lord will excuse me...so much excitement after a year of solitude...I'm worn out." And she left him standing in the middle of the dance floor, mouth open.
Not that Duke Humphrey was disconcerted for long. By the time she'd pushed between the dancers to the edge of the crowded hall, the dance had come to an end. Charles of Orleans was nowhere to be seen. Catherine was amused, when she looked back, to see Duke Humphrey already had his hand on Countess Jacqueline's arm, and he was leaning in toward her, eyes fixed on her breasts, grinning.
Quietly, with an economy of movement that, even under his dark robes, suggested his athleticism, Owain followed her out. They walked up the stone stairs, away from the din and echo. Owain and half a dozen lesser servants were to sleep near her rooms. Catherine was laughing rather hysterically at her escape from the Duke. She started to giggle her story out: "...you wouldn't believe the look on his face...staring at me...staring at Jacqueline of Hainault too...the crassness of it."
If she expected an answering laugh, she was disappointed. Owain's face stayed somber. "It would be a mistake to make an enemy of Duke Humphrey," was all he said. "Even if you don't want to marry him...treat him with respect. Don't go too far."
Bowing from a safe six feet away as he took his leave of the Queen Mother and tried not to be moved by the trust in her long, lovely eyes, Owain clenched his hands into fists inside his robes and prayed for fortitude. There'd been peace, of a sort, in the certainties that had taken shape in the royal household. Whichever castle it moved to, the routines, always exactly the same, were comforting. He knew he had a place. He felt he understood his life. Catherine, so helpless, so absorbed in her role as a mother, needed him. The little boy too. Those facts were simple enough for him to believe that the needs of the flesh could be overcome; the yearnings of the heart ignored. But here, in the grandeur of Westminster, people and events were buffeting painfully into him, and he felt helpless--as bitter as poor Maredudd, and as invisible.
Now--now she'd gone and he was alone--Owain recognized the agonizing writhe and flex of jealousy in his gut. It was so obvious that this entire festivity had been arranged to allow Duke Humphrey to press his suit for Catherine's hand as soon as decently possible. Far too soon for real decency, in Owain's view; it was his own dead brother's wife the shameless goat was lusting after, after all. Had the man no respect?
Yet she'd been so excited about coming to Westminster--calling in tailors, insisting most of the household trail off to the dance in her wake. Like a child with a glittery toy.
Had she no idea?
No wonder Humphrey had got so drunk and started groping at her with his butcher's hands. Humphrey had understood her dressing herself in bright sinful scarlet and decking herself out in her wedding jewels just as everyone else in the hall had--as a signal she'd accept his advances, when they came.
But then she hadn't accepted his advances. She'd kept him dancing attendance all evening, then taken offense at some trifle and humiliated him by walking away in full view of the entire court. He could see now that she wasn't the strumpet they'd all taken her for. But was she an utter fool?
Owain was walking so fast he felt he was on air. When he reached the spiral stairs up to his own rooms, he took them four at a time.
Worse yet, she'd practically fallen round the neck of the Frenchman. Owain had never been proud of having taken Charles of Orleans prisoner all those years ago. He'd liked the Frenchman's thin, sensitive face, and he'd felt the same fear of battle that the Frenchman had. It was just dumb luck that had allowed him to come second to that God-forsaken copse, when the Frenchman was already caught in mud and undergrowth, and play the captor while the other man stumbled before him, tied with a rope. Once back in England, Owain had read the French Duke's wistful verse and found it elegant. He'd always kept back from Charles of Orleans in any situation in England where their paths might have crossed, fearing the other man might be humiliated by meeting him again, or even by having been captured by a man of lesser status. Still, he'd sometimes wished that things were different, and that somehow, one day, he and this man of graceful words might have a conversation. The fact that they couldn't he put down to the ugliness of war.
But tonight, when he'd seen how Catherine had devoured Charles of Orleans with hungry eyes, gobbling up the faded blondness of him, nuzzling up close...
Owain banged his door behind him. He was trembling with fury. He wished now that he'd had the sense, back at Azincourt, to take his sword and run the thing through the bloody man's heart.
Even Bishop Beaufort, who usually so enjoyed a cruel little laugh at Humphrey's expense, wasn't as lighthearted the next day as Catherine had expected.
"You do have to remarry," he said seriously, coming to her rooms in the hot midmorning, as she watched the packing of chests and trunks begin. They'd set off for Windsor soon after midday. "You're a parti. There will be suitors. And Humphrey wants you for his wife. True, that's partly so he can score off Duke John, but he might take tremendous offense if you turn him down too harshly. So tread carefully."
A little startled, Catherine nodded. She hadn't considered the risk.
"You need to give this real thought," the Bishop emphasized, looking at her with none of his usual sardonic humor. "Your remarriage is probably the most important decision you'll ever have to make. If there's someone you want to choose, you should put the idea firmly into your mind now. Choose your own candidate, if there is one. Don't be girlish; forget modesty. Don't run the risk of finding yourself married off to someone you don't want."
He leaned forward. "Think," he pressed, without a smile. "Is there someone you would choose?"
She was acutely aware of Owain in the shadows behind the Bishop, sitting with one leg laid over the other knee, arms concertinaed over each other, closed in on himself, scowling. All blacks and blues and angles. He looked like an angry god. She didn't know why he looked so angry.
"If there's no one," the Bishop went on, "but you'd still rather not marry Humphrey, we should find another candidate...it's always better to choose for yourself..."
Catherine continued trying not to look at Owain, tight-lipped and unspeaking, behind the Bishop. She didn't know why she felt so guilty.
Or did she? She'd received a message from Charles of Orleans at first light, by manservant. It was a poem called "The Return of Spring." The lovely gay words were still dancing in her head.
Now Time throws off his cloak again,
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain,
And clothes him in the embroidery,
Of glittering sun and clear blue sky...
River, and fount, and tinkling brook,
Wear in their dainty livery,
Drops of silver jewelry;
In new-made suit they merry look...
The Bishop was raising his eyebrows at her, looking for her attention.
"Otherwise..." he said.
She didn't answer directly. But, with a little smile on her lips, still reluctant to leave the pretty shallows where her mind wanted to dwell, she said, "Did you see my cousin last night?
Charles of Orleans? It was the first time I'd seen him since...long ago...in France."
She paused. She'd thought she wanted to ask the Bishop if there was really nothing they could do to help poor Charles of Orleans return to France. But now she saw that by mentioning him here, in this conversation, she'd somehow seemed to suggest him as a marriage candidate.
Perhaps that hadn't been entirely unintentional, she thought a split second later. Perhaps...
"Suicide," Bishop Beaufort replied swiftly, answering both her questions. "Madness. Don't think of it. Don't even correspond with him. You may only mean to help him, but you would be wasting the goodwill you've begun to build up here if you started fretting about marrying a French prisoner. Don't get caught up in...Frenchness. Don't throw yourself away. It means nothing, the old familiarity you feel for your cousin; though it's all too easy to mistake the shared memories of youth for love." He twinkled kindly at her, but she saw it as a warning. "That isn't the kind of association you need."
"But," Catherine stammered, "Charles of Orleans is my blood. My cousin. He was my brother."
"Trust me," the Bishop said. He didn't even want to discuss it anymore.
"Trust him," Owain confirmed, and his face was as sharp and cold as steel. "He is the guardian of your honor."
Catherine bowed her head. There was a muted kind of pleasure in self-denial. She could see the force of their argument. She would not pursue a friendship with her sad, lovely, long-suffering cousin, she thought; just in case. She could see it would be misconstrued as not wanting to become part of England. And she would not harbor thoughts of marrying Charles of Orleans just to feel more at home. She should probably not even seek him out to thank him for the poem.
The next day, as she checked the corners of the Westminster Palace apartment before mounting her horse for Windsor, in case there was any last little thing that had been forgotten, she found a new scrunch of parchment tossed into a corner.
She unraveled it. It was another poem to her, from Charles of Orleans.
"Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart, and with some store of pleasure give me aid, for Jealousy, with all them of his part, Strong siege about the weary tower has laid," Charles of Orleans had written--no letter, no words of everyday affection, just a plea. He was jealous. He wanted her. He was asking for patience and perseverance to help him to get her.
Catherine's heart bled for her poor, gallant cousin and the hopelessness of his situation. She didn't know how this message had missed its destination, but she could imagine the Bishop taking it from a messenger yesterday, reading it himself, and seeing it represented a danger that he, the Bishop, thought she shouldn't take, throwing it into a corner.
Or...For a moment she wondered: Could it have been Owain?
All the way to Windsor, Catherine thought, a little apprehensively, but not without pleasure too, about the possibility of a new marriage. Her thoughts were in the abstract. She couldn't really imagine the intimacy of any real-life man's form or face turning toward her, or smiling, or whispering (except Owain's--she could always imagine Owain; but then Owain was always there in front of her; all men, in her mind, had something of Owain's dark, quiet, height, and poise). When Catherine thought of marriage, she thought primarily that she might enjoy a more public life, attending dances and dinners such as the one Humphrey had organized, where she'd been surprised to have so enjoyed the sight and sound of so many adults of her own rank gathered together, talking and laughing. She might enjoy having a new title--becoming, if not a queen again, for she couldn't leave England and Harry, then maybe a princess or duchess to an English duke--and having guests to invite, or alliances to nurture for her husband.
As long as the husband wasn't Duke Humphrey, she thought. A lifetime of beef breath and hair bursting ginger from nostrils and ears, and coarseness of speech: worth planning to avoid.
As it turned out, however, there was no need for Catherine to rush into a defensive marriage plan to ward off the Duke's amorous attentions. Duke Humphrey had abruptly married someone else. His bride was Jacqueline of Hainault. The lovers had papal permission to marry--but not from Pope Martin of Rome. They'd decided the dubious dispensation of the rival Benedict XIII of Avignon, whose rulings were not accepted in England, would be enough. As soon as they were churched, furtively, in Essex, the Duke and his new Duchess had rushed off to the Continent together. Duke Humphrey was apparently planning to fight her battles for her, and force the Duke of Burgundy to accept that Jacqueline's pre-existing marriage to the Duke of Brabant was null and void.
Catherine stared at the Bishop, who'd been delighted to be the bearer of this news, and was looking cheerfully back at her, smiling with tremendous, visible satisfaction.
"What...gone?" she stammered. "For good? Just like that?"
The Bishop's smile grew broader still. "Just like that," he agreed. Catherine could see him thinking of all the Council meetings that would become easier now Duke Humphrey wasn't there to throw his weight around and nag for a larger share of power than the Council wanted to give him--which would leave the Bishop to organize things in his own subtle way. Duke Humphrey had, in effect, impulsively left England to be ruled by the Bishop. No wonder the Bishop looked glad.
But the Bishop didn't say any of that. He just said kindly: "We'll have more time now, to find you a good marriage," as if he had nothing on his mind but Catherine's well-being, and pressed her hand. "You'll be happy about that."
Catherine stole a glance at Owain, standing behind the Bishop. She was learning to trust Owain's reactions; to see England through his eyes and rely on his cooperation. It was one of the few things she was certain of in her life here, she thought, gratefully; that she and Owain Tudor had moved beyond the impetuousness of their long-ago feelings for each other to the graver, more restrained, more enduring affection that prevailed now. She counted him a friend. She wanted to see how he'd taken the news that Humphrey had gone, and her remarriage was in the hands of Bishop Beaufort. But he had his eyes fixed on his former master, and his features were expressionless. Try as she might, she couldn't read the studied neutrality in that dark face.
Months passed before the Bishop brought up the question of Catherine's marriage again--happy, quiet months, in which, with the Bishop's gentle guidance, the affairs of England seemed to run smoothly enough, far away from Catherine's and Harry's tranquil child-world, and Catherine forgot the brief flicker of interest she'd felt at hurrying back to the company of adults.
The next mention of marriage came only after Harry had made his first bone-jolting four-day trip to London, stopping at Staines, Kingston, and Kennington, before riding on his mother's lap through the City of London to Westminster, to be introduced to a cheering Parliament. It happened only after Christmas, at Hertford Castle, with the entire school of royal wards now in residence. The entertainments had been organized by Owain, from Jack Travaill's London players and the Jews of Abingdon, with New Year gifts to the King of coral beads, a gold brooch, and, from Duke John in France, a gold ring set with a ruby.
Harry was nearly three, in fact, when Bishop Beaufort came to chapel with them and raised the matter again. Watching the little boy's head, folded in prayer, in the chapel (to Catherine's relief, the child loved the solemnity of candles and stained glass and chanting, and spent willing hours on his knees--better, she thought, time spent quietly in prayer than rushing about fighting), he said, "If you were still minded to marry again...I have given the matter long thought...and there is a possible match..."
He gave her a side ways look.
Catherine wished Owain were with them. But he was busy with household duties. Feeling a little alone, she composed her face and hands; made a point of looking up at the Bishop with willing alertness, as if about to acquiesce. She didn't need Owain, she told herself. She was close to the Bishop. She could trust the Bishop to have found the best candidate for her, couldn't she?
"Edmund Beaufort," the Bishop murmured, watching her face.
> Catherine's head swam. She hadn't met Edmund Beaufort--he was a prisoner in France--but she knew of him. She'd met his mother, she recalled--the charming, elegant, dark-haired Margaret of Clarence whom the Bishop had introduced her to last year, at the feast at Westminster. She remembered liking Margaret of Clarence at once. She remembered the Duchess's lovely profile too, and the willowy grace of her movements. A son who took after that mother would be unlikely to be ugly, she thought with relief.
Beyond that guess, she realized, she knew only the sketchiest of facts about Edmund Beaufort. He was younger by five years or so: maybe nineteen now. And he was a prisoner of war--like Charles of Orleans in reverse. The fourth son of one Earl of Somerset, and the brother of another, he'd been one of the English lords captured a few years back at the battle of Bauge. He'd been held at Bourges by Catherine's brother Charles ever since, though in his case a ransom had been agreed and he would shortly be released and allowed to return to England.
She knew the Bishop and Duchess Margaret had been drawing up plans for a celebration of Edmund Beaufort's return. Was a marriage to Catherine to be part of the celebrations?
"What do you think?" the Bishop whispered.
"Your nephew," she replied slowly. "You're suggesting I should marry your nephew?"
As those words crossed her lips, it occurred to Catherine that, if she accepted this marriage, organized by one member of the Beaufort clan, to another member of the Beaufort clan, she would be demonstrating to all England that both she and her son the King were utterly at one with the Beauforts. It wasn't at all the neutral marriage proposition she'd expected the Bishop would come up with, after all his talk about how she must find a husband to avoid angering Duke Humphrey. It would infuriate Duke Humphrey, and Duke John over in France, too, if she married a Beaufort. Of course it would--it would elbow both the royal brothers further away from the King, and replace their influence definitively with Bishop Beaufort's. It would be a brilliant marriage--for the Beauforts. But would it be so brilliant for Catherine of Valois, Queen Mother of England?
The Queen's Lover: A Novel Page 39
