Kitabı oku: «The Forbidden Queen», sayfa 3

CHAPTER TWO

I made it to the altar at last in spite of all obstacles. Henry Plantagenet waited there for me, regally magnificent.

‘My lady Katherine.’ He welcomed me with a chivalric bow. ‘I rejoice. You are even more beautiful than my memory recalled. Your new English subjects will honour my choice of bride.’

His words were formal, but I could not doubt the admiration in his gaze. Clothed in a cloth-of-gold bodice, I allowed myself to feel beautiful, my body transformed by Isabeau’s tirewomen into a royal offering fit for a King. I was scoured from head to toe, my hair washed and brushed until it drifted like a fall of pure silk. My brows plucked, my nails pared, my skin cleansed with tincture of cowslip to remove any hint of a freckle, I was polished and burnished until I glowed like a silver plate for Henry’s delectation. Beneath a translucent veil my hair spread over my shoulders, as brightly gold as the cloth beneath, proclaiming my virginity to God and the high blood of England and France.

Thus arrayed, I stood before the altar in the Church of St John in Troyes, my hand enclosed in that of Henry of England. His clasp was firm, his expression grimly austere as we faced the bishop, but perhaps he was simply preoccupied with the solemnity of the occasion.

Intense cold rose up from the floor and descended from the roof beams and I shivered with it. Henry’s hand around mine too was cold, and I was trembling so hard that I thought the whole congregation must see it, my veil shivering before my eyes like sycamore flowers in a stiff breeze. Oh, I had no fear of his rejection at this eleventh hour. When Henry had been required to place on the bishop’s missal the customary sum of thirteen pence, in symbolic payment from the groom for his bride, my eyes had widened as a stream of gold coins had slid from his hand. Thirteen gold nobles, so vast a sum. But, then, perhaps thirteen gold nobles was a small price to pay for the Kingdom of France.

Another shiver shook me from head to foot.

‘There’s no need to tremble,’ he whispered as the bishop took a breath. ‘There’s nothing to fear.’

‘No,’ I whispered back, glancing up, grateful for the reassurance, pleased that he was smiling down at me. How considerate he was of my apprehension. Of course he would understand that a young girl raised in a convent would be overawed.

The bishop beamed at us. Turning to Henry, the phrases rolled around us.

‘Vis accípere Katherine, hic praeséntem in tuam legítiman uxórem juxta ritum sanctae matris Ecclésiae?’

‘Volo.’

There was not one moment of hesitation; neither was there any lover-like glance in acknowledgement of our union. Staring straight ahead as if sighting an enemy army approaching over a hill, hand still gripping mine, Henry made his response so firmly that it echoed up into the vaulting above our heads, to return a thousand times.

‘Volo, volo, volo.’

It rippled along my arms, down the length of my spine. Henry was as proud as a raptor, an eagle, his response a statement of ownership, of both me and of his new inheritance.

I swallowed against the rock that had become lodged in my throat. My mouth was so dry that I feared I would be hopelessly silent when my moment came, and my mind would not stay still, but danced like a butterfly on newly dried wings over the disconcerting facets of my marriage.

The royal Valois crown was my dowry. Henry would become the heir of France. The right to rule France would pass to our offspring—Henry’s and mine—in perpetuity as the legitimate successors. I had been handed to him on a golden salver with the whole Kingdom of France in my lap for him to snatch up. My Valois blood was worth a king’s ransom to him.

The butterfly alighting for a brief moment, I glanced across at Henry. Even he, a past master as he was at the art of cold negotiation, could not govern his features enough to hide the glitter of victory as he took the vow.

The bishop, who was staring encouragingly at me, coughed. Had he been addressing me? I forced myself to concentrate. Within the half-hour I would be Henry’s wife.

‘Vis accípere Henry, hic praeséntem in tuum legítimun maritum juxta ritum sanctae matris Ecclésiae?’

I ran my tongue over my dry lips.

‘Volo.’

It was clear, not ringing as Henry’s response but clear enough. I had not shamed myself or the decision that had been made in my name. Many of the French nobility would wish that it had never come to pass. When my mother had offered me and the French Crown in the same sentence, there had been a sharp inhalation from the Valois court. But to save face, to dilute the shame of deposing the reigning King, my father was to wear the crown for the rest of his natural life. A sop to some, but a poor one.

The bishop’s voice, ringing in triumph, recalled me once more to the culmination of that hard bargaining.

‘Ego conjúngo vos in matrimónium. In nomine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.’

All done. Henry and I were legally bound. As the musicians and singers, lavishly paid for and brought all the way from England by Henry, began a paean of praise, and we turned to face the congregation, the clouds without grew darker, and rain began to beat against the great west window.

I shivered, denying that it was a presentiment of things to come, as, perhaps in impatience to get the business finished, Henry’s hand held mine even tighter and I slid a glance beneath my veil. Not an eagle, I decided, but a lion, one of his own leopards that sprang on his breast. He positively glowed, as well he might. This was a triumph as great as Agincourt, and I was the prize, the spoils of war, giving Henry all he had hoped for.

There would still be war of course. My brother Charles, the Dauphin, and his supporters would never bend the knee. Did my new husband realise that? I was sure he did, but for now Henry, head held high, looked as if he were King of all the world. And in that moment realisation came to me. I, the much-desired bride, was not the centrepiece of this bright tapestry. Henry was the focus of attention, the cynosure for all present, and so it would always be in our marriage.

‘You’re trembling again,’ Henry said quietly.

The nerves in my belly tensed, leapt. I had not expected him to speak to me as he led me down the aisle to the great west door; his eye was still quartering the congregation, as if searching out weaknesses on a battlefield.

‘No,’ I denied. I stiffened my muscles, holding my breath—but to no avail. ‘Yes,’ I amended. He would know that I was lying anyway.

‘Are you afraid?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I lied again.

‘No need. This will soon be over.’

This increased my fear tenfold, for then I would be alone with him. ‘I’m just cold,’ I said.

And at that moment a break in the clouds allowed a shaft of pure gold to strike through the window to our right as if a blessing from God. It engulfed him in fire, glittering over the jewelled chain that lay on his breast. The leopards flexed their golden muscles as he breathed and his dark hair shone with the brilliance of a stallion’s coat. The light glimmering along the folds of my veil were of nothing in comparison.

He was magnificent, and I found that I was clinging to his hand with a grip like that of a knight upon his sword. Henry, reading the apprehension in my face and in my grip on him, smiled, all the severity vanishing.

‘A cup of wine will warm you.’ The hard contours of his face softened. ‘It is done at last,’ he said, and raised my fingers to his mouth. ‘You are my wife, Katherine, and my Queen, and I honour you. It is God’s will that we be together.’ And there in the centre of the church with every eye on us, he kissed my mouth with his. ‘You have made me the happiest man in the world.’

My trembling heart promptly melted in the heat of flame, and I could feel the blood beating through me, to my fingertips, to the arches of my feet. Surprising me, a little bubble of joy grew in my belly, stirred into life by no more than a salute to my hand and lips from the man at my side, and I felt happy and beautiful and desired.

Beguiled by the idea that I was Henry’s wife and he had honoured me before all, I smiled on the massed ranks as we passed them, confidence surging within me. I would never feel unworthy or unwanted or neglected again, for Henry had rescued me and given me a place in his life and in his kingdom.

We waited at the point where, the arches soaring above us, the chancel crossed into the nave of the church. Behind us the procession of English and Valois notables took its time in beginning to form, allowing us a few words.

‘England waits to greet her new Queen,’ Henry said, nodding towards a face he recognised to his left.

‘I hope to see England soon,’ I replied, relieved that my voice was quite calm with no hint of the sudden dread that gripped me that I would have to live in England, a country I knew nothing of, with people who were strangers to me. My overwhelming happiness had been short-lived indeed.

‘You will enjoy the welcome I have prepared for you. You will be fêted from one end of the country to the other.’

Turned back from the crowd to me, his face was illuminated by his smile. Handsome in feature, power rested on his shoulders as easily as a summer-weight silk cloak. But what did he see in me? What would he wish to see in me? With what I hoped was intuition, I lifted my chin with all the pride and dignity of a Queen of England, and smiled back.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ I replied. And in the light of his obvious pleasure, a newborn certainty that Henry would care for me and protect me from my inexplicable anxieties, prompted me to add, ‘And thank you for the gift, sir. I value it. It was very kind…’

My words dried up as his brows twitched. ‘I sent no gift, Lady.’

‘But yes.’ Had not the note with it made the fact explicit? ‘You sent the portrait.’ But I saw the lack of comprehension, the hint of censure in the flat stare, and realised that I had made a mistake. Pride and dignity fled. I instantly floundered into an incomprehensible reply, making matters worse, furious with myself, despairing of my inability to hold tight to confident tranquillity as Michelle would have done.

‘Forgive me. Perhaps I was mistaken,’ I managed, flushing to the roots of my hair. I prayed, my thoughts scrambling, that Isabeau was not close enough to hear me exhibit my desperate lack of sophistication.

‘I expect my brother Bedford sent it,’ Henry remarked.

‘Y-yes,’ I stammered. ‘I expect that was so.’ I dropped into clumsy silence as our procession shuffled in an impatience to move. His brother. Of course. I remembered John of Bedford’s kindness at our first meeting. Henry had seen no need to give me such a symbol of his esteem. I swallowed hard against the hurt that it meant so little to him, but chided myself. I was too easily hurt. I must grow up quickly, as Michelle had warned. It was not Henry’s fault that my happiness was so transient a thing. It was mine.

Perhaps sensing the turbulence in me, Henry patted my hand as if I were a child, before looking back over his shoulder to address those who pressed close behind. His three brothers, Bedford, Gloucester and Clarence. His uncle, Bishop Henry of Winchester. And he grinned.

‘Are you ready? My dear wife is near frozen to death. Her health is my prime concern. If you intend to stay in my good books, you’ll walk sprightly now.’ His grin encompassed me too. ‘Lend her your cloak, John. You can manage without.’

Lord John obeyed with a laugh, and I found myself wrapped around in heavy folds of velvet. Henry himself fastened the furred collar close against my neck.

‘There. I should have thought of it. It becomes you better than it does my brother.’

My dear wife. His fingers were brisk and clever, his kiss between my brows light, and still I shivered, but now with pleasure at the depth of his consideration. I was wed to Henry of England. I had a family. For the first time in my life I belonged to someone who put my happiness before anything else, and his touch heated my skin.

Was this love? I was certain that it must be, as my heart was swamped with unnamed longings. I looked up at my new husband as we paced slowly towards the now open door, to discover that Henry was still looking at me, coolly assessing his new possession, until his beautiful mouth curved in a renewed smile and his eyes gleamed with the candles’ reflected light. His grip was sure, resonating with authority: I knew he wanted me and would not let me go, and I was glad of it.

I was truly dazzled. My hopes for this marriage were beyond any woman’s dreams. And it was God’s will—had Henry not said so? All would be well. I knew it.

‘Well, all in all, it could be worse. Or could it?’ A sly chuckle followed.

I was sitting in the place of honour for my wedding banquet.

‘She’s young.’

‘But Valois.’

‘She’s handsome enough.’

‘If you like pale and insipid.’

‘I’m surprised Henry does. I thought a more robust wife would bring him to heel at last.’

I flushed uncomfortably. Whatever I was, I was not a robust wife. The burgeoning confidence that had stiffened my spine at my wedding was draining away like floodwater into a winter sluice. Do they not say that eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves? How true. Unfortunately, my understanding of English had improved sufficiently for me to grasp the gist of the conversation between the little huddle of three English ladies.

Blue-blooded and arrogant, they had accompanied the English court to my marriage, and now as my bridal feast drew to its close, when I knew that I must stand to make a dignified exit beneath the prurient gaze of the feasting masses, they had moved to sit together and gossip, as women will. They were not wilfully cruel, I decided. I supposed they thought I would not understand.

‘Do you suppose she’s inherited the Valois…problems?’

‘There are so many.’

‘Madness, forsooth. Have you seen her father? No wonder they shut him away.’ The owner of that voice was a rosy-cheeked brunette with decided opinions, and none to my advantage.

I glanced at Henry, to sense his reaction, but he was deep in some discussion with his brothers Bedford and Clarence to his right that necessitated the manoeuvring of knives and platters on the table.

‘And treachery…’

‘Extravagance…’

‘Adultery…’

The eyes turned as one to Isabeau, who was leaning to attract some man’s attention, and the voices dropped to a whisper, but not enough for me to be deaf to their judgements.

‘She likes young men, the younger the better. Nought but a whore. And an interfering bitch when it comes to politics.’

‘We must hope there’s nothing of her mother in her.’ The brunette’s eyes flicked back to me. I stared stolidly before me, concentrating on the crumbs on the table as if they held some message. ‘Madness would be better than uncontrollable lust.’ A soft laugh drove the blade into my unsuspecting flesh.

The heads were together again. ‘It’s always a problem if the bride is foreign and of a managing disposition. She’ll want to introduce French ways. Pursue French policies.’ There was an inhalation of scandalised breath. ‘Will she expect us to speak French with her?’

‘Will she seduce our young courtiers, do you suppose, climbing into their beds when the King is away?’

By this time I was horror-struck. Was this what the English thought of me, before the knot was barely tied? A dabbling French whore? And would I be expected to take these women as my damsels? Would I have no choice in the matter?

‘She doesn’t have much to say for herself. Barely two words.’

They are cruel, a voice whispered in my head. They don’t like you. They mean to hurt you.

I knew it to be true. They had already damned me, dismissed me as inadequate for my new role. I tried to close my ears but a little interlude of quietness fell, while the minstrels quaffed ale and the musicians tucked into any passing platter they could waylay.

‘She doesn’t look like a managing woman. More a timid mouse.’

Resentment surged beneath my black and gold bodice. This should have been a moment of spectacular satisfaction for me, a celebratory feast. The Mayor of Paris had sent Henry wagons full to the brim with barrels of wine in grateful thanks that he had not razed their city walls to the ground. My mother’s lips might twist at their treacherous pandering as she drank the fine vintage, but the quality was beyond compare.

Above my head the banners of English leopards and Valois fleurs-de-lys hung heavy in the hot air. I should have been exultant. At my side sat the most powerful man in Europe, and to my mind the most handsome, so how could I be so foolish as to allow these English women to destroy my pleasure? The clear voices continued in inexhaustible complaint.

‘She looks cold.’

‘Do you suppose our Henry can thaw her?’

‘He’ll need to. He’ll expect a son before the year is out.’

‘But can he be sure that any child is his?’

I grew even colder, isolated on a little island in the midst of a sea of conversation that did not include me, any reply I might have sought to make frozen in my mouth. Momentarily I felt the urge to stretch out a hand to touch Henry’s sleeve, for him to come and rescue me from this unkindness, and I almost did, but Henry was tearing a flat round of bread, placing the pieces at right angles to each other to represent—well, I wasn’t sure what.

‘There’s trouble brewing here,’ he pointed out. ‘And here.’

‘It’s not insoluble,’ Clarence stated. ‘If we can take the town of Sens.’

More warfare. Dismay was a hard knot in my belly. I drew my hand back.

‘Sens—that’s the fortress that’s the key to this.’ Henry nodded. ‘We can’t postpone it. Their defiance will only encourage others.’

‘There’s still time to celebrate your wedding, Hal.’ And I discovered that Henry’s brother, Lord John, was smiling at me. ‘You have a young bride to entertain.’

‘Of course.’ Henry turned his head, his eyes alight, his face animated, his smile quick and warm when he saw I had been listening. ‘But my wife will understand. I need to be at Sens. You do understand, don’t you, Katherine?’

‘Yes, my lord.’ I wasn’t sure what it was that he hoped I would understand, but it seemed to be the answer he required from me, for he began once more to reorganise the items on the table.

‘And after Sens has capitulated…’

I sighed and kept my eyes lowered to the gold plate before me. Where had that come from? I wondered. Any gold plate we had had been sold or pawned—or was in Isabeau’s personal treasury. So probably it was English, brought for this occasion so that they could impress us with their magnanimity. Perhaps I would always eat from gold platters. I was Queen of England now.

A whisper hissed, an unmistakable undercurrent, breaking once again into my thoughts. ‘She’ll not keep our Henry’s interest. Look at him! He’s already talking warfare and he hasn’t yet got her into bed!’

‘Not exactly smitten, is he?’

I tried not to be wounded by the gurgle of laughter.

‘He’ll want a woman with red blood in her veins, not milk and water. Someone lively and seductive. She looks like a prinked and painted doll.’

Lively? Seductive?

Of course I was not lively! Did they expect me to run amok? As for seductive—if that meant to use my female arts to attract a man, I did not know how to, and dared not try. What did these women expect of me when every possible rule for my good behaviour had been drilled into me by my mother after the failure of that first attempt to make a marriage at Melun? Nothing must jeopardise this negotiation at Troyes. Nothing! My conversation and my deportment must be perfect. I had been so buried under instruction that I had become rigid with fear of Isabeau’s revenge if Henry should reject me.

But of course these haughty English women did not know. How would they? And neither did Henry—for I would never admit it to him. I could not bear to see the condemnation in his face that I should be so weak and malleable.

I could feel my mother’s eye on me even as she sat along the table and conversed with someone I could not see. Dry-mouthed, I lifted the cup to my lips, but it was empty except for the dregs. I replaced it, awkward with nerves under her stare, so that the gold-stemmed goblet fell on its side and rolled a little, the remnants of the wine staining the white cloth, before it fell to the floor with a thud of metal against wood.

I held my breath at my lack of grace, praying that no one had noticed. A hopeless prayer: it seemed that every guest in the room had noticed that the new French wife was so gauche that she must drop her jewelled cup on the floor in the middle of her wedding feast.

Isabeau frowned. Bedford looked away. Michelle raised her brows. Gloucester inhaled sharply. An almost inaudible ripple of laughter from the ladies informed me that they had noted my lapse of good manners and added it to my list of faults. I clasped my hands tightly in my lap, not even attempting to rescue the vessel. If only the floor beneath my feet would open up and swallow me and the cup from view.

And then my heart sank, for Henry forsook his planning. Stretching down, without expression, he picked up the gleaming object, tossed it and caught it in one hand and placed it before me once more. And that drew everyone’s attention, even if they had missed my inelegance in the first place.

‘Shall I pour you more wine, Katherine?’ Henry asked.

I dared not look at him—or at anyone. ‘Thank you, sir.’

I had no intention of drinking it. That way would be madness, drinking to oblivion, to hide the speculative attention, but it was easier to agree than refuse. I had learned that people were far happier when I agreed.

He looked at me quizzically. ‘Are you content?’

‘Yes, my lord.’ I even smiled, a curve of my lips that I hoped would fool everyone.

‘This interminable feast will soon be over.’

‘Yes, my lord. I expect it will.’

‘You will become used to such occasions.’

‘Yes.’

I opened my mouth to say something more flattering, but he had turned away—and I caught my mother’s eye again. Like that of a snake: flatly cold and lethally vicious. Her earlier instructions rushed over me in a black wave, delivered in her curt, clear voice as if she were sitting at my side, even drowning out the female gossips.

Don’t speak unless you have something to say, or are spoken to.

Smile, but don’t laugh loudly. Don’t show your teeth.

Eat and drink delicately, and not too much. A man does not wish to see a woman scooping up every scrap and crumb on her plate, or licking her fingers.

I would not, even though my starving childhood had given me a respect for the food on my plate.

Modesty is a virtue. Don’t express strong opinions or argue. Men don’t like a woman to argue with them.

Don’t be critical of the English.

Don’t flirt or ogle the minstrels.

I did not know how to flirt.

If this marriage does not come to fruition because he takes a dislike to you, I’ll send you back to Poissy. You can take the veil under the rule of your sister. I will wash my hands of you.

‘I suppose she is still a virgin. Can she possibly still be a virgin—from that debauched French court?’ The brunette’s whisper reached me like an arrow to my heart.

Pray God this feast came to an end soon.

Henry bowed me from the dais with gratifying chivalry, kissing my fingers, and handed me back into the care of my mother for the final time. Wrapped around in my own anxieties, I noted that the trio of English women rose too: they were indeed to be part of my new household.

And so I was escorted ceremonially to my bedchamber, with much waspish chivvying at how any lack of experience would soon be put to rights, but my mother silenced any more silliness when she promptly closed the door, without any word of apology, on their startled faces. Outside the door they twittered their displeasure. Inside I flinched at the prospect of another homily. I could not escape it, so must withstand whatever advice she saw fit to administer. Soon I would be my own woman. Soon I would be Henry’s wife in more than name and God’s blessing. Soon I would be beyond my mother’s control and Henry would not be unkind to me.