The Queen's Lover: A Novel

by Vanora Bennett

  The girl in the tower was the one who'd awakened all those people's hopes. A peasant in boy's clothes; a girl who talked of having had visions of Saint Michael--who'd destroyed dragons--and of Saint Catherine, the holy virgin who couldn't be dissuaded from her faith even by fifty philosophers, who'd only been silenced by being broken on a wheel of knives. The girl in the tower had wept at the beauty of what the saints told her. She had a tongue so golden that she'd raised France for Charles, put a crown on his head at Reims, nearly breached the walls of Paris, and, according to Owain, impressed Christine de Pizan out of a decade of silence. Miracle after miracle after miracle.

  Jehanne must be a lunatic. Or a fraud. Or a fool. She must have been a fool to trust her fate to Charles, who'd done nothing to ransom her; who'd passively let her be turned over to the English. But she was gallant, all right. You couldn't fault her there. She'd been captured because she'd taken the place of honor at the back of the field after ordering a retreat. The Cardinal had said so. She'd been easy pickings for the Burgundians cleaning up the rear guard.

  Catherine tried to imagine what that must have been like: tried to picture dressing as a short-haired boy, or holding up a sword, or yelling a command to a sea of men, or charging. The surge of muscle and intent; the heat and dash of it. But her imagination failed her. It was too far from herself: from all the anxious retreats and defeats and defenses and worrying that had made up Catherine's life. Try as she might, she couldn't see how an illiterate peasant girl, even one armed with a sword that she had miraculously found behind the altar at the shrine of Saint Catherine at Fierbois, a sword the rust had dropped from as she lifted it, could have found the courage to do all the things she was said to have done. She'd persuaded her family to take her to the garrison commander at Vaucouleurs. She'd persuaded that skeptical count out of his sarcasm and into letting her visit Charles' court, far away in the south, through hostile Burgundian territory, putting on her boy disguise to escape detection on the road. Once there, she'd somehow persuaded the brisk, snappy, hard little Yolande of Aragon, Charles' mother-in-law, to let her travel with Charles' army to Orleans. And how could she possibly have convinced enough supporters that she had the ear of the saints that they would give her armor, white armor, and a horse, and a banner and an entourage; that they would let her lead an army?

  Catherine, aware of how her own courage had so often failed her at the prospect of looking Warwick or Duke Humphrey, or even her mother, in the eye and insisting on what she wanted, couldn't begin to fathom it. Comparing her own frozen immobility with these stories of wild, unhesitating, uncompromising courage, she thought: if Jehanne's a fox, then I'm a rabbit. For a moment she was ashamed that she had never done what the peasant girl had done; never found the strength to have gone out and spoken her mind and led adoring armies inspired by her golden words and the bright steel of her sword. If the stories weren't exaggerated to the point of complete falsehood--if the girl really had done all that--well, she thought, it did seem a miracle.

  All she could really imagine, as she shook her own long hair out till it hung down her back, was taking the knife and chopping it away to boy-length: the sound of the blade sawing; the soft swoosh of the locks dropping to the floor; the freedom of wind on the neck. Experimentally she held her hair away from her own neck; put a finger to it in place of a knife; felt the night air on her nape. Would you be changed by that act of severance? Could you be changed enough?

  She was so absorbed that she didn't even hear Owain come in. She'd only glimpsed him on the road here; only had the memory of his last quiet words back in Calais, with his arms encircling her: "I'll find you there; don't worry." But she hadn't known whether he'd manage to make his way to her room tonight, now they were all so packed in; in a castle so full of noisy soldiery.

  She only became aware of him when she felt other hands take her hair; another finger held to it like a knife. With his arms on her again, she knew she was safe; the fears that always tied her gut in knots eased away at once. But now she couldn't help wondering what it must be like to live without fear altogether; to have the certainty that, even quite alone, you would find a way to do what you knew was needed.

  Owain was smiling rather sadly as he leaned forward to kiss her ear, holding her close. "Cutting off your hair..." he said, knowing at once; nodding at the tower. "I know...I've been thinking about her too. You can't help wondering what set her off, can you?"

  "How she had the courage..." Catherine sighed. "I can't help admiring her for that."

  Then, feeling so terrified saying it, even in a whisper, even in the safety of here, with him, that her heart started to race before she spoke, she gulped out: "I hope she gets away."

  She waited, frozen, for Owain to respond. Jehanne was, after all, the enemy. But he didn't condemn her for the thought; he only shook his head regretfully, as if he half agreed but thought it unlikely. "Look at that guard," he muttered. "She jumped seventy feet at Vaucouleurs--twice. They're not taking any chances here."

  Even in her relief, Catherine's heart was still thudding as if she'd been running. But Owain only went on: "They'll have to put her on trial--some sort of full public trial. They can't just kill her quietly. She's too popular. They'll need a process of law. They'll need to call killing her an execution. But they do need her to die."

  She chafed at the quiet remorselessness of Owain's voice. He liked the drama of Jehanne, the flashing sword. She could see that. But he clearly didn't feel the same empathy Catherine did with that girl, trapped in the tower, with only cruelty and death ahead.

  "They--or, rather, we," Owain corrected himself, "--the English army, that is--have to prove she's flesh and blood, not a miracle-worker--not protected by God. Because she nearly won France for your brother. She crowned your brother King of France. And too many people have started to believe that's who he is--you've seen the white crosses, haven't you? Warwick has to get her executed to prove to the doubters that your son is King of France."

  Catherine sighed. She could see the force of the argument, in principle, though now Jehanne was captured and Charles' army contained again, what difference need it make to Harry whether the girl were alive or dead? Still, obviously that wasn't what Warwick would say. So there was no hope. Just a stay of execution for the peasant girl, as, she supposed, was the case for everyone really; a lingering of days before an unthinkable end.

  Owain smiled at her. He was putting Jehanne from his mind; he wanted to celebrate their reunion. But her mind shied away from that, and from thinking of Charles. She went quiet and still in his arms. She couldn't make love. She couldn't get that girl in the other tower out of her mind, and couldn't stop the pity and the anger filling her at the thought of Jehanne. At least she, Catherine, was only being shut away from a full life by those men; but Jehanne would be killed.

  For a moment, Owain sighed too. She could feel his cheekbone against hers; he was looking out at the tower and there was pain in his eyes. For a moment she loved him utterly for sharing her feelings so completely; but then she realized he wasn't sighing for Jehanne at all. After a while, he said pensively: "Poor Christine. How sad she'll be...I wonder if she knows."

  The Cardinal's rooms were, as usual, the best in Rouen Castle, and he'd made them better still with the luxurious hangings and furs and furnishings he always traveled with. Owain didn't know quite how his master managed to create this appearance of grandeur wherever he went, and with no apparent effort, but he admired the effect.

  But today Beaufort's sunken cheeks were more sunken than usual; his prominent eyes bulging. He was stroking his chin. The Cardinal made a point of never looking anything but good-tempered and worldly-wise; but, Owain thought, this was as close as he'd seen the churchman come to looking worried.

  "My boy, I've just had a very odd conversation with Warwick," he began. He raised an eyebrow.

  Owain waited.

  "He doesn't seem to have been able to persuade any French judges to frame a case against his prisoner
," the Cardinal went on. "Whoever he tries, they all just say the same thing--that she hasn't committed a crime--she's just a prisoner of war."

  Correct though it was that Jehanne had committed no crime but was a prisoner of war--who therefore shouldn't, according to the laws of honor, be executed--Owain turned up his hands to indicate bewilderment. He didn't like to pre-empt the Cardinal. He was the servant; it was his job to defer to his master. They were both happy with their familiar roles. The Cardinal nodded, aware of this restraint, and went on: "So, as you can imagine, Warwick isn't happy at all."

  "He needs to put Jehanne on trial," Owain agreed.

  "And here's the rub," the Cardinal went on, putting a veiny white hand to his forehead so that Owain could see for sure he hadn't made a mistake earlier--the Cardinal really was worried--"Warwick's saying now that if he can't have a secular trial, he's going to have to go to the church courts instead. It seems he's got some tame bishop in hand, promising him a guilty verdict." He raised his eyes to Owain's face. They were bloodshot. "If there's a religious trial, it puts me in a very awkward position indeed, my boy. As you can imagine."

  Owain raised his eyebrows. "Why?" he asked. That was his job: drawing the Cardinal's thoughts.

  "Because there are no real religious grounds for a trial either," the Cardinal said. "So whatever laughably trumped-up case Warwick and his little bishop come up with, using whatever nasty little religious court with its nasty little bought opinion, right under my very nose--when half of Christendom is for Jehanne and Charles, and even the Pope is half convinced Jehanne is a saint...well, I shouldn't be involved. I should have nothing to do with any of that. You can see that, can't you? A Cardinal of Rome, apparently condoning whatever it is that Warwick's going to do. The Pope's not going to like it...not one little bit..."

  The Cardinal wrung his hands under his chin. Owain could indeed see his dilemma. The Cardinal was making this trip in the hope of cementing his friendship with the little King of England and making his own future secure. The Cardinal needed to take steps to protect himself because his position was so precarious. He was already out of favor with Duke Humphrey in England. If he also fell out of favor with his foreign master, the Pope, he'd be in a very weak position indeed.

  "So...should you leave?" Owain asked, cutting to what he felt was the central question: what action the Cardinal should take. "Now...before it goes any further...before you are implicated?" But Owain could see the problem with a principled walkout even before he said those words. If the Cardinal left, he'd cut his ties with Harry and Catherine. And those ties were exactly what he was trying to strengthen.

  The Cardinal shook the head still cradled in his hands. "Can't do that," he said. No explanations. He never offered explanations if he could avoid it; he tried never to pin himself down too much.

  With private surprise, Owain realized that Catherine and the Cardinal, for very different reasons, each seemed to be inclining toward support for Jehanne, meaning conflict with Warwick. Owain didn't share their complicated feelings. As far as he was concerned, there were no doubts and no shades of gray. Jehanne's actions in the past, and her existence in the present, were a threat to Harry and to the English rule in France that King Henry had instituted. Owain's loyalties lay with Henry's son, and always would, so any threat to the child had to be neutralized. It wasn't personal. It wasn't that Owain didn't thrill a little to the idea of that girl taking up a sword--the gallantry of it. But it didn't make any difference. Jehanne had to die, just as a wasp, a rat, or a spider that came too close to the little King's person would be exterminated. Henry would have wanted no less.

  Owain thought it might be advisable to keep Catherine and the Cardinal apart while this question was discussed. He didn't like the image that flashed into his head: the pair of them stalking out of the great hall together, leaving behind a furious, white-faced Warwick. He didn't want trouble. He'd advise Catherine to eat in her rooms; he'd advise the Cardinal to stick to theology. They couldn't combine forces that way.

  He told the Cardinal: "Talk to Warwick again. He won't want to look a fool any more than you. If there are no grounds for a religious trial, explain why. Dissuade him."

  "You look so tired," Owain said, kissing Catherine's eyes shut. "Rest. I'll have food sent up to you for today. I don't want you to get ill."

  "No," Catherine replied determinedly. She rose naked from the bed. "I'm not missing dinner. Not today. Dame Butler says that's when Warwick's going to make his announcement about Jehanne. Apparently he's going to put her before a religious court--for heresy."

  Owain hadn't asked the Cardinal exactly what the charge would be. "Heresy?" he queried faintly. It sounded a dubious sort of charge. The visions; the voices? Were they heretical?

  "Because she wore men's clothes," Catherine said. "He's saying that was heresy."

  With something like dread, Owain saw her chin jut into an unfamiliar stubbornness. She went on, with undisguised scorn for the clumsiness of the accusation--and, he felt, for Warwick's choice of it, as well as Warwick himself: "But of course you'd need to dress up as a man on the battlefield."

  Thank God we will be leaving Rouen soon, Owain thought. But even he hadn't understood everything. It was only when he was sitting in the great hall, at his place halfway down the table among the knights, watching Warwick's thin lips move as he made his announcement, that Owain realized what was happening. Warwick declared that the King, the Queen Mother, the royal party, and the English army would all stay at Rouen for the duration of the heresy trial he was convening for Jehanne. It was vital, he said, that the greatest lords of France were seen to witness the heretic being destroyed.

  The knights filed out.

  "Why heresy, may I ask?" Cardinal Beaufort called as the Earl also rose, looking grimly satisfied.

  Warwick stopped when he heard the loud question. He gave the Cardinal a look of disfavor. The Earl had his new favorite with him--a soft-jowled bishop, Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, the man who'd led the negotiations through which the English had bought Jehanne from the Burgundians who'd captured her. Warwick gestured to the Bishop to answer.

  "Deuteronomy, chapter twenty-two," the cleric answered readily enough, with a faint curve of the lips.

  Catherine hung back nearby, listening. She took no notice of Owain, who for some reason had come up from his place at table to hers, at the top end of the table on the dais, to try and nudge her out--a very indiscreet lapse, she thought, and quite uncharacteristic of Owain. She wasn't going to take any notice anyway; she wanted to hear out this bishop. She could see the fat French cleric knew his texts, but she disliked the way his cheeks quivered as he quoted: "'A woman shall not be clothed with man's apparel, neither shall a man use woman's apparel: for he that does these things is abominable before God.'"

  The Cardinal only waved his hand. He knew his theology too. "But that won't hold up for a moment, my dear Bishop," he replied swiftly. "What about Saint Thomas Aquinas? The Summa Theologica. "'It is sinful for a woman to use male clothing or vice versa; nevertheless in some circumstances it may be done without sin if due to some necessity, whether for the purpose of concealing oneself from enemies, or due to a lack of other clothing, or due to some other matter of this type.'"

  The Bishop quivered again. "Ah, but she never lacked other clothing," he lisped, with another ingratiating little smile. "Clothing more proper to a woman than hosen and doublet."

  The Cardinal smiled back. Both Catherine and Owain could see it wasn't his usual smile--more of a baring of teeth. "But she was on a battlefield, among hundreds of men, and a virgin," the Cardinal riposted, and Owain was unpleasantly aware of the admiring glance Catherine was sending his way. "She had to protect herself. Wearing men's clothes was a way to do that." The Cardinal added, with a hint of menace in the velvet of his voice: "I think you'll find that most of Christendom will take the view that it's perfectly normal for a virgin to fear rape more than she fears death. Mmm?" He leaned forward and continued: "Perhaps yo
u have forgotten, Monseigneur, how many theologians have made precisely that point in their writings. Guido de Baysio, Archdeacon of Bologna, for instance. Rosarium super Decreto. "'If a woman should have a proper purpose--in order to travel abroad safely, or to protect her chastity under other circumstances when there is fear of losing it--she is not committing a sin if she should then make use of male clothing to more easily evade danger.'"

  The unpleasant Bishop let a look of extreme pained astonishment come across his fat features. He spread his arms wide and turned his clean pink palms toward the heavens.

  Catherine expected the bulging veins at Warwick's neck and temples to signal the beginning of an outburst of rage. She'd seen him with Harry. But all he said, in a cold, warning voice, addressing the Cardinal, was, "Henry."

  They all stopped then and looked cautiously round. But it was all right. The last of the knights was loping out of the door. The table was clear. The servants were gone. The participants in this conversation moved closer together. Their voices dropped.

  "Look," the Cardinal said, ignoring the Bishop and addressing Warwick directly, "Richard, I don't care what charge you use against her as long as it works. I quite understand that you need her dead. But you need a charge--and a guilty verdict--that the world can take seriously. Not this."

  Owain breathed out. Catherine looked so disappointed by that cynical new note in the Cardinal's voice.

  The Cardinal said: "I don't know that a religious trial is at all what you need. I fear you've been very badly advised." He gave the Bishop a nasty look, then continued, "This 'wearing men's clothes' accusation is so weak, for one thing--and heresy a messy charge at the best of times. It's all going to go terribly wrong."

  Warwick, stony-faced, said: "How?"

  "First, because if you do stick to the particular charge you've chosen, there are so many loopholes; so many theological arguments that Jehanne could use to get off the hook. I just quoted a couple, but there are dozens more. Her representative will easily find them."