Wife to Henry V: A Novel (14 page)

They were surprised, all of them, at the sudden ring of the King's laughter.

* * *

Henry sent for my lord Duke of Burgundy. Burgundy came, carrying himself arrogantly as ever. There was no laughter now in Henry. Beaufort noticed the cold, the cruel look about his mouth.

“I will endure this nonsense no longer,” Henry said. “For myself I will keep to our bargain—both lands and marriage. But if not—” he shrugged, unwilling to let false Burgundy know how much his heart was set, “I am not here with my armies for the sake of my health. I will drive your King out of France and you with him.”

“Sir,” and Burgundy was actually smiling; and no wonder—the little matter with the Dauphin was ail-but settled, “you will weary long before that!” And bowed himself out.

When Burgundy was out of earshot and not before, Henry let himself go in one of his rare, his terrible rages.

Clarence tried to speak but was ordered from the Presence; Tom, his best-beloved. Henry Beaufort remained.

“Burgundy makes me a laughing-stock; all France makes me a laughing-stock,” Henry said savagely prowling. “How is it to be endured?”

“You had best take a woman; you have not slept with one since you were crowned,” Henry Beaufort said. “Six years—it's a long time.”

“Good advice, Uncle-Bishop!” Henry said, dry. “But I'll have no trollops in my camp, however much the flesh itch.”

“That's the top and bottom of your impatience, believe me.”

“You judge all men by yourself.”

“How else?” Beaufort laughed. “But seriously, Harry! Your chief anger is over this marriage—you are too good a soldier to mind the other setbacks overmuch. It's the delay in marriage that pricks.”

“A man must marry,” Henry said. “And when ambition chimes with fancy—why delay?”

“Why, indeed? A pretty girl, the lady Catherine; she had a look, I thought, of the little Isabella. But make no mistake, Nephew. That is no Isabella for all her white gown and downcast eyes. There runs the hot blood of Madam Isabeau—and none the worse for that if she be honest.”

“She's honest—none of her mother's tricks as yet—and we'll keep her so.” But for all that he would have had her cool and gentle as the little Isabella.

* * *

Burgundy was playing false, waiting for the least excuse to break away.

Day after day the pretended friendship, the futile meetings, the useless conversations.

Henry curbed his anger, showed a smiling face.

And now it was early July, and he would endure it no longer. He rode out of Mantes in the early summer morning to meet Burgundy this last time, here and now, have his Yes or No.

He stared unbelieving. Burgundy was gone;
the Field of the Cat
empty, pavilions and banners folded away. Nothing but litter and stamped earth.

His face was so bleak, so bitter beneath gay chaperon and high jewelled collar that no man dared speak; not even Beaufort who had had the handling of him as a boy.

* * *

God had given him the victory and he was frittering it away; he allowed them to play him one against the other, Burgundy and the Dauphin each dangling before his nose the lady Catherine. They should pay for it! All France should pay for it...except the girl. No falseness there; he had seen her eyes.

His anger was pricked deeper by his desire for her—his Uncle Beaufort had spoken no more than the truth; though few men would have dared speak it. With her dark eyes and cherry lips she had awakened long-sleeping desire.

Well, he would take no strumpet to his bed—fine counsel from my lord Uncle-Bishop! Let all men see he infringed no tittle of the chastity he had laid upon them.

He made one more attempt. Pinching his pride he sent my lord Archbishop and my lord of Warwick to Pontoise. Burgundy refused to see them.

Let Burgundy refuse! At least the issue was clear between them. Now he would have all France and the lady, too.

...The girl modest and young with her downcast eyes. He would not only take her—he would win her first. Did she think he haggled over a few crowns—though he needed them, God knew!

He had the jewel baggage opened; remembered the crown of cheap pearls she had worn, chose a rope big as peas for her white neck; and the great ruby to match the red mouth. He ran the glittering stones between his fingers...diamonds, sapphires, emeralds. A royal gift...and they would return to him quite soon.

* * *

She never received them; they had fallen into the hands of the Dauphin, and were lost forever.

“A hundred thousand crowns lost!” Isabeau said bitter.

“Your son,” Burgundy said, smooth, “if not your daughter is the richer.”

She gave him a quick glance. She was more troubled by his behaviour these days than she cared to admit—he had dared to insult Henry's messengers. She said, “Charles never could be trusted.”

“He's young,” Burgundy told her.

“I know his age,” she reminded him drily. “Let me tell you this, my friend. The older he grows the stronger he grows—in deceit. It's a bad day for those who trust in him.”

“It could be,” de Giac said, and there was a touch of insolence about her where she stood in her place behind the Queen's chair, “that I know him best of any. I was his governess.”

“I have not forgotten,” Isabeau said gently.
And how much of his deceit, his treachery is due to you? You pampered him like a lapdog; you laughed at his lies and forgave him his lessons ;you stuffed him with sweetmeats and won him with gifts. What child could stand against that?

“He loves me still, my Dauphin,” de Giac said. “All France may be glad of that yet!”

Isabeau saw the dark look Burgundy sent the woman. Was he tired of her babbling tongue? Or was it a warning? Whatever it was it boded no good to de Giac. Did she truly think she held both Burgundy and the Dauphin in her pretty claws? Didn't she know that the one who trusted either of them was doomed?

But de Giac was not worth one's thoughts...except for that dark look to be unravelled.

In the summer garden at St. Pol the trees were in dark leaf, roses shook their fragrance upon the air. But Catherine cared nothing for them. A few short weeks ago she had thought to enter Paris riding with her King; they two, high upon their horses for all to see. Instead she had been carried in a litter behind sly Burgundy and that jewel-thief her brother. It was they who rode in front, in loving friendship for all the world to see. They were to rule France between them, those two; with her mother and father set up as figureheads to make all good.

And Paris was mad with joy. Mad and mad, indeed!

So here they were back in St. Pol—with Michelle come to join in the solemn thanksgiving.

Isabeau sat withdrawn; she said little these days; but her thoughts were bitter. She did not want this peace with her son. Was she expected to forget he had robbed her, smeared her name, thrust her in prison? Once she had loved him—her little son; but Charles himself had broken the natural bond. When she looked at him with his big head and his handsome face dissipated for all his sixteen years, when she looked at his knock-kneed spindle-legs, it was hard not to turn away in disgust. Burgundy and Charles thick as thieves—and thieves, indeed! Well there was an old saying about thieves falling out. Let her swallow this pill bitter though it was; let her go slowly, playing one against the other, wooing first this one and then that—though she hated them both, picking her careful way until she herself ruled France...and they came crawling to her. If she were patient, if she were clever, it would come!

She rubbed cold hands, cried, impatient, for the man to fill the brazier. For all the July heat, for all her own handsome showing, she felt the cold in her bones.

Catherine, chin on hand, cast a contemptuous glance at her sister. There Michelle sat, smug, bent over her embroidery. Come to thank God for peace. An insult to Him! He had no hand in the lying and the treachery!

“Don't thank God, Michelle,” she said. “It's your treacherous father-in-law you should thank, and our viper of a brother. But you are altogether too soon with your thanks. Until your father-in-law is dead—or our brother—there'll be no peace in France; no, not though you drag yourself all the way from Ghent on your knees to pray for it.”

Michelle opened her mouth; Isabeau tried to silence her with a look.

“But, Madam!” Michelle, greatly daring, was not to be silenced. “That France should stop bleeding is nothing to her—all set as she is upon marriage.” Her nose, Catherine thought, had certainly grown longer. “Believe me, child, having a husband is not everything.”

“Agreed,” Catherine said, smooth. And how dare Michelle with her two extra years call her a child? “One must keep him, too.”

Michelle flushed all over her thin face. She stood up abruptly; the gay wools scattered upon the floor.

“You have a neat thrust,” Isabeau said when Michelle had gone. “But did you have to be so cruel? Michelle's husband is unfaithful—what then? No worse, I suppose, than any soldier when he leaves his wife.”

“Philip didn't wait to leave his wife; all Christendom knows that! Young as he is he's got half-a-dozen bastards already. Besides, war or not, some men are faithful, some men are chaste.”

“One may not find that such an advantage. Philip's unfaithful—what of it? Michelle's a fool not to play the same game. Men don't value a treasure until another takes it. And now, queen you may be one day; but just now you're my daughter. You can pick up your sister's wools and set them in order.”

“Yes, Madam.”

“Listen, child...”

“Yes, Madam.”

“Yes Madam, no Madam. And all the time that obstinate head of yours thinking its own thoughts. Catherine my girl, I know men—that is agreed? Then listen to me. This Henry of yours takes what he wants and he doesn't wait long. Let us hope you will enjoy what you...” she paused, made her thrust, “desire.” The red flowered in Catherine's cheeks.

* * *

They were back again in Troyes, Troyes Catherine's good luck city! She was glad to be away from Paris with its hateful rejoicings, her still more hateful brother.

“Smile, child!” the Dauphin had said, a grin on his own sick child-face, his meagre frame hung with jewels—her jewels, no doubt; and beneath the silken doublet, his armour—she did not doubt that, either. “Courage!” and he had chucked her under the chin. “We'll find you a husband, never fear!”

It was as much as she could do not to slap his face.

Well, they hadn't lasted long, those rejoicings; Henry of England had seen to that! While they were celebrating in Paris, he had walked in and taken Pontoise, Pontoise where her dreams had come to nothing. He had found the walls deserted—the watchmen celebrating, too, no doubt! That had shaken my lord snake of Burgundy; shaken her viper of a brother, too. It was more than just another rich town taken—and Burgundy knew it. It was the first English prize outside Normandy; first triumph in France itself. Now the Paris road lay open. That was why they were all back in Troyes—hustled there by Burgundy whose word no man could trust.

“Courage, my girl,” Isabeau said. “Now Pontoise has fallen the rest will follow. The English have already taken Gisors, and Chateau Galliard bows her saucy head at last.”

Yes, she would take courage. Henry of England would fight his way to her side though all France stood between.

And now there was more riding backwards and forwards of messengers than ever before. “This time Burgundy will treat England's envoys with respect,” Isabeau said, grim. “Imagine it! Our dear cousin and our dear son, true loving friends—and each striving to betray the other.”

It was late summer now. Catherine sat with Isabeau at her embroidery frame. Behind the Queen Jeanne de Giac stood. There was something odd about the woman, Isabeau thought. She looked satisfied; but certainly it was not with love. Why then did she look like a cat with cream?

As though the woman read her thoughts she came from behind the Queen's chair. “Madam,” she said, “have I the Queen's leave of absence for a while?”

“You wish to leave us, de Giac?”—The Queen said, “Come, this is a poor return. One should return love for love!” Her mouth smiled but her eyes were hard, questioning.

And whose love, Catherine wondered? De Giac knew that Burgundy was done with her; as for the Queen's love, she was enough of a woman to take that at its true worth!

“Still you may go, de Giac; you may love us and leave us,” the Queen said.

There was the tread of heavy feet; without the courtesy of knocking Burgundy came in.

“You may leave us, de Giac,” the Queen said.

Jeanne de Giac made her curtsey, swam on the billows of her silks from the room.

“There goes Delilah,” Isabeau said.

“Meaning...Madam?” Burgundy asked.

“You should read your Scriptures, Cousin.”

She had stung his pride. Finished with Jeanne he might be; but for all that she was his faithful harlot. Let not this Jezebel question it. He bent his dark gaze on Catherine, dismissing her, too.

Isabeau said, “She shall remain. She is concerned in this. All these policies! Let her learn her way among them.”

“If she have the wit, Madam.”

Catherine flushed, hating him for his rudeness, distrusting his every word, wishing him out of the way where he stood between her and her crown, between her and her love; wishing him...dead. Why not? Better men than he fell in battle every day; but not he, the crafty fox. He would live and batten on men's blood until he met a fox craftier than he.

She remembered, inconsequent, that they had carried a fox's brush before Henry when he entered Rouen.

With a start she came back to the conversation; she must listen, make of it what she could.

“...at Montereau,” Burgundy was saying.

Isabeau raised her plucked brows, lifted them to the edge of the great head-dress.

He should come to us here,” she said. “It is for the son to wait upon his parents, the prince to wait upon his King.”

“He did not ask you, Madam, to wait upon him; he would not presume.” Burgundy was smooth. “It is I who am asked—my country's most humble servant.” He fingered the pouch where the letter lay, gratified by its sweet phrases, pleased at the thought of meeting young Charles without fear of the Queen's sharp tongue.