Wife to Henry V: A Novel (22 page)

“Your Henry is not as smart as I thought,” Isabeau said, a little spiteful. She was feeling her own diminishing of glory, outshone by this brilliant young man; outshone by her own daughter; feeling the sharp pinch of poverty. Her pride did not sit easy beneath the humble state she must keep at St. Pol and the glories she saw at the Louvre. “The way to get money is to increase taxes, we know that very well! But it is the poor you must load; they are dumb beasts, they will accept because they must accept. But the merchants won't be dumb, not by any means; nor their betters, neither. Justice!” she almost spat the word. “Your Henry uses the word as a charm; but he may find it a spell to stir his enemies against him.”

Isabeau was right.

The University of Paris,
the King's Obedient Daughter
, begged for exemption—no money! Henry rapped the King's Obedient Daughter sharply on the knuckles. Let her melt down her plate if she had no other gold. Justice for all.

The merchants and the nobility, the University and the clergy accepted it. But they were not like the dumb poor; they whispered beneath their breath, sowed the seeds of discord.

* * *

Christmas. Catherine bloomed in the magnificence of living; her pretty face glowed beneath the jewelled head-dress; her young body beneath cloth of gold moved with a new voluptuous grace. She forgot Henry's dourness; forgot, even, her own barrenness. How should she remember in the midst of feasting and masques and music; in the midst of visitors forever kneeling with their gifts and the poets singing her praises?

“Now I know what it is to be a Queen,” she told Guillemote.

“You will not know until you reach England, Madam.” Guillemote smiled, combing the long chestnut hair. “But Madam...” She stopped. “Madam...” she said again.

“Well Madam? What Madam?” Catherine was quick to sense the reservation.

“The people of Paris are sad. It's because of the poor state our King and Queen keep at St. Pol—a few old servants, and half the nobility forgetting to pay their respects. Here at the Louvre—everything; at St. Pol—nothing. Madam, we love our King. I think we love him more because God has afflicted him. A kind man, easy with high and low alike. It was always open house with him—meat and wine for all! Now the people grumble. They say there's enough and to spare at the Louvre—the very dogs crammed full. But the poor must go away empty. They are not used to that; they are angry...”

“Then they must get over their anger!” Catherine turned her head this way and that. “The net and crown? Or the henin do you think? They cannot expect us to feast all who come; food is scarce in Paris, so they say.”

“That's why it comes so hard—forgive me, Madam, if I offend. It was bad enough in Paris before we came from Corbeil. Now there's the English, the great lords and ladies—I say nothing of their servants; and then all their soldiers. And there's my lord of Burgundy with all his train and all his soldiers. Add to that our own nobles coming from all parts to pay homage, and they with their ladies and their servants as well! Paris is being eaten out of house and home. Prices are rising, all the time rising; in less than a month the price of bread has doubled—and all the time the quality getting worse; it's mainly bran, now, for the people. And to get that, they must take their stand before daylight and even then—unless they can afford to coax the baker with wine or some other gift—they must go away empty. They live, so I hear, on cabbage and turnip—and those raw since firewood is hard to come by. And the children...the children, Madam, die on the dunghills grubbing for food.”

“You believe too much!” Catherine said, short.

“I have seen too much.”

Pacing the chamber she could not but believe Guillemote had spoken the unpleasant truth. Did Henry know that he was losing the goodwill of Paris by his display as well as by his meanness? Surely he could not know. Paris was new to him; he did not understand its ways. She longed to beg him for the sake of Christ—if not for his own—to show some kindness to the starving poor. But she could not get over her fear of him—his austerity, his arrogance. He did not relish others jogging his conscience. His face would darken; or, if he were in a good mood, he would tweak her ear as one plays with a child or a puppy.

Better to say nothing. Soon they were for England; in England she might learn him afresh, surprise some gentleness, some merriment in him.

* * *

She knelt to take her father's farewell; Isabeau had already said
Goodbye
with her accustomed bluntness, shrewd and lewd. But Charles the King wept to see the last of his children go...So many he couldn't remember them at all, but gone...gone. Isabella who had gone into England long and long ago, was dead; and Jeanne far away, so far away he couldn't remember the place. But Marie he remembered because she was My Lady Abbess and prayed God daily for him. And his sons were dead—all three; or four? Four perhaps. He couldn't remember. But he did know that the last of them had been driven away. With his own hand he had disinherited young Charles...

Now he was shaken with sudden anger against Isabeau who had forced him to the deed, urging that all France would rise against the murderer. Murderer? As if all France didn't know it had been none of young Charles' planning!

From Isabeau his anger spread to Philip, sly Philip whispering that all was for the best...that young Charles was not the King's son at all; spread outwards to this Henry of England, this heart of stone. The three of them forcing the issue; forcing him to summon the boy to answer for his crime—summon the Dauphin of France! Of course Charles hadn't come; no-one had expected it! But they'd seized the opportunity to declare him guilty; to declare him incapable of succeeding to the crown—incapable of managing his estates, even. They'd sentenced him to banishment; to banishment, his last, his only son. And he, the boy's father, had signed because of the buzzing in his head...a thousand, thousand bees...

The slow tears rolled down his face.

And now they were sending this child away, too—little Catherine, sending her away with the Fox of England, the Fox with the heart of stone, sending her far, far away and he would never see her again...

He wept lost as a child, while Catherine knelt. She saw others weep, wished she could weep herself; she was embarrassed, merely, at the senile display. She knelt there, patient; rose and kissed his hand. A slight tremor of disgust ran through her as her lips touched his hot, dry skin.

* * *

But it was all forgotten now, forgotten. They were on the road to England.

She rode through the countryside saying her farewell to France.

She felt no sorrow; she looked, instead, with quickened pleasure on this land which was twice her own.

Riding alone at the head of her train she enjoyed the journey; Henry was following and they were to meet at Rouen. She was glad to take her progress undimmed by his magnificence; the English ladies she put entirely in the shade, though there were some beauties among them. Glory was about her like a cloak—she was the Queen. She was glad that Henry was not there to spoil the brightness with his dark, cold look.

* * *

She had been glad of Henry's absence; yet, when they met again outside Rouen, her heart leaped. He was all of a man with his lean and handsome look, all of a King with his magnificence. But when she looked once more into those cold eyes, her heart dropped again.

The bells rang out as they rode in together, a wild pealing as though all the angels in heaven had struck them at the same time.

More processions, more flowers, more triumphs, more music. Though she knew him by now, she was still amazed at the quiet with which he took his triumph. He would leave the feasting to work at his papers. Her mother was right. He worked like a poor clerk rather than like a conqueror...though he could play the conqueror only too well.

Now it was all business with him. But she was not Isabeau's daughter for nothing. She held her own court; received her gifts, believed the flattery, finding it not at all surprising that men should wish to die for her. She began to believe her pretty youth was truly beauty.

All along the road to Calais, in every town, every village, people came crowding to bend the knee, to bring their gifts. She was too young, too flattered to understand that fine speeches and rich gifts do not always come from the heart...and she forgot the people of Paris who hated her husband for his conqueror's glory.

And now they were actually on board ship, canvas spread for England. She thought he looked relaxed, pomp laid aside; he needed no pomp—he was coming home.

Now he had a little time to talk with her, walk with her.

“I had meant to stay longer,” he jerked his head backwards towards France. “There is much to be done, very much—if I am to keep it mine; and yours. But my people want me home...for a little...my English.” And he made it sound a word of love. “A King is servant to his people. But the Queen?” He smiled. “All good Englishmen are servants to the Queen. And since I am my people's servant, what does that make me but the lowliest servant of them all? I am your most humble, obedient servant, Madam.”

She smiled back; her fear of him no less, but she relished his new gallantry.

“They call you
the Fair
” he said. “Did you know that? Well, don't let it turn your head. You're a pretty girl but no beauty; and I like you the better for it. I'm a plain, blunt soldier, what would I do with a raving beauty?”

She looked at him sideways through long lashes, trying upon him her mother's wiles. But he only laughed aloud. “You're my honest, simple Kate; don't despise simplicity, simplicity needs strength. Simplicity without strength...” He stopped, remembering the terrible simplicity of her father.

These short hours of the crossing he spoke to her more than in all the six months of their marriage. And it was always about his England. His people were the salt of the earth and heroes, every one...except the heretics. But them he would burn, every man jack of them, so that England should remain a land of heroes. “When I am well-settled in France and both my countries clear of heretics, then I shall go to the Holy Land...”

She looked at him. Was he never to stay at home in his glory?

“The Holy Land...Jerusalem. And the hill where they crucified my Christ.” His face was exalted. He had condemned men to the fire and watched them burn. Now she saw he would himself die for his faith however long the torture, burn for it, gladly, in the green fire.

She thought she had never known so single-hearted a man, so strong, so honest. Next to him the men of her family were so much rubbish. This new Henry—he must be learnt with slow patience, as one learns a lesson hard but rewarding. And he? Could he learn to love her a little?
Get yourself with child.
Isabeau's warning rang in her head. But she couldn't, she couldn't—not when she was afraid of him. Then her first lesson was not to be afraid of him; and that was the hardest lesson of all.

She saw him leap to his feet, stride to the bulwarks, shade his eyes with his hand. He was lit with excitement, shaken with excitement.

“England,” he said. And it was as though he spoke the Name of God. He swung himself about, sent that hawk's glance of his searching her from head to foot. As though, she thought, this England were his mother all set to judge me.

Fear pierced her through.

* * *

In the forecastle Guillemote brought out gowns for her inspection. She chose a tight-sleeved cote of Flanders cloth fine as silk, pale as pearl. Guillemote dressed the ruddy hair—a narrow circlet holding a golden net; no head-dress for January winds to sport with! Guillemote knelt to fasten the high-cut shoes lined with fur; rose to fasten the jewelled buttons of the fur-lined houppelande. In her gentle grey she looked young, tender. The small head in the grey-furred hood lifted like a flower; the rosy face, the grey eyes dark now with fear, the red, young mouth looked touching, innocent. She looked, Henry thought as she came towards him, a gentle child.

For the first time his heart misgave him. He had not treated her with overmuch gentleness. He had taken her as a man takes a woman. Why not? She was Isabeau's daughter and nearly nineteen. Well, he would make amends. Let her win his people and he would set himself humbly to win her. A well-loved Queen strengthens the hand of the King; a Queen, unloved, halves his power—especially if she be a foreign Queen. So it had been with his father's second wife, her foreign household had been a constant irritant to the people. Wise she had been...but not wise enough.

He turned his thoughts quickly from Johanne.

Let Catherine, this pretty Catherine, win his people and there was little he wouldn't do for her! He would forget France for a little while; he would woo her, make music with her—she had a pretty touch upon both lute and harp. He recalled, frowning, that one of her harpstrings was broken. He made a mental note. The harp must go to John Bore of London; no-one else should touch the Queen's harp. He added a further note—to rebuke the steward.

He looked at her again, the young and slender neck, the small and royal head. A man, he thought, who has time to win his wife is a fool if he doesn't try.

Dover. He stood, face turned to the land. England. His England. He could see the great white cliffs black with people against the skyline; could see folk swarming down by the harbour and the men-at-arms thrusting them back with staves. He felt the moment's anger. They were his people. No-one had the right to stand between them and their King. He remembered the smell of them—sweat and onion—and was not sorry that they should be made to keep their distance.

Beside him Catherine felt the shudder of the grounding, took the tremor less” in flesh than in spirit. She felt no kindness for this new land of hers, nor any regret for what she had left behind. She was simply and solely afraid.

She saw the great lords—Barons of the Cinque Ports, Henry told her—rush into the water, velvets and furs and fine leather shoes and all; she could hardly believe her eyes. They shook the spray from themselves like dogs, their faces were bright with joy above the icy sea-water. They made their courtesies all dripping as they were. And while she was thinking how odd a welcome, they had seized her, hoisted her, and were wading back. Shoulder-high, she felt the water sting in tiny arrows upon her face.