Wife to Henry V: A Novel (52 page)

Owen must not see her like this, not ever again. He must go away, right away, until she was well once more.

* * *

They said Goodbye in Catherine's chamber where she lay in the shadow of the great bed.

“I cannot leave you, nor I will not leave you,” Tudor said and wept. Such a thing she had never seen before. Sorrows they had known and fears, but never before had she seen him weep.

“Come now,” she was hard and bright with her grief, “it is a woman's part to weep. It may be forgiven a woman if she weep herself to a fountain!”

“It becomes a man to weep when he parts with his heart's love,” he said.

“To part?” she said and took the word like a sword in the heart; but her face gave no sign. “If not now—then maybe forever. But you shall come back soon—the King's pardon. He cannot refuse me. I never asked a gift from him in my whole life. Yes, you shall come back and the King shall make you an earl—a duke, even—who knows? And every lady in Christendom will envy me my handsome husband.” She laughed, crouching in the shadow of the bed.

He heard her laughing as he strode away, lifted his hand all wet with her tears to his own wet cheek. And, she for all her laughing, when she could no more catch the distant sound of his going, sprang from her bed, hung against the door and wept as though her body were torn by childbirth rather than by the pain of parting.

* * *

Forgetful of her condition she was startled to her feet when my lady of Gloucester, without warning, and on the heels of announcement, came into the room.

Eleanor's narrow eyes narrowed still further and that was all.

“Dear Madam and Sister,” she said and made a sketch of a curtsey. And, as always, the insolence of that last word was galling. “We had expected you at court. Such junketings since Burgundy was forced from Calais, such masques, such feasts, we have not seen this long while. It has pleased even my lord King to be merry...except for lacking you, my dear! So, since you would not come to us, I have come to you.”

“You should wait till you are asked,” Catherine said—Queen to Cobham.

“I might wait too long.” Eleanor let her insolent eyes flick over the Queen's figure. “You are not well, Sister, I fancy. But—” she laughed, “no doubt you will be worse before you're better.”

“I shall be a great deal worse,” Catherine said, steady; “but I doubt I shall be better ever again.”

“Fancies, Sister, fancies. In women's affairs courage is all!” She smiled; said suddenly, “That was a handsome child I saw upon the stair.”

“Which child?” Catherine's lips were dry for all her careless air.

“Are there so many little ones about your household?”

“My page perhaps.”

“They start young in your service.”

“We find it better.”

“No doubt.”

Catherine shook from head to foot with the tide of her anger. She was weary to death of this cold, insolent pricking. She would order the woman from her presence—no need for care now, the woman's eyes told her so. But...
Careful, my heart
, Owen would say.
A bad thing is not so bad but that it may be made worse!
And the creature was Gloucester's wife.

She bit upon her tongue.

There came the sound of light feet racing along the corridor, a child's feet. Jasper came bursting in forgetful of his manners.

Over his head Eleanor flashed her sly, triumphant glance.

“The lady!” he said all breathless with haste. “She bade me meet her here. She promised me a hawk, a little hawk, a little tiny hawk; just big enough for me, she said. Isn't she kind?” He pulled at Catherine's sleeve. “Madam...mother,
isn't
she kind?”

She saw what few people had ever seen—Eleanor's eyes open wide; they were cold and hard as stone, ugly as stone. Eleanor was daring her to refuse the name of mother.

She was suddenly sick of the lying, of the subterfuge; and it was all useless, useless. The boy was looking at her as any child to any mother, pulling at her skirts, impatient.

She knew now that it was all a trap. It was a trap she was too proud to notice; too pitiful for the child this woman had set to bait it. She would not deny the name, cloud his clear world for fifty Eleanors.

“She will send you no hawk, Jasper,” she said, “do not think it! But you forget your manners, child. What sort of page is this that kneels neither to his mistress nor to her guest? You do me small credit, my son.”

The crimson sudden in his cheeks, he did his devoirs with all the grace of Tudor's child. “But all the same I shall send you the hawk,” Eleanor said, sketching her curtsey to the Queen. “It's a fair child, Sister. I wish you well...and a speedy recovery.” And so was gone.

* * *

It was growing towards evening when Johanne shook Catherine awake in her chair. “Thank God Tudor is gone!” the old woman said and looked with pity upon the sleep-drugged eyes. She knew, none better, how fear may drug the body so that the sharp edge is no longer felt. “You must send the children away. You must send them at once.”

“The children?” She was fully awake now. She began to shake.

“At once. Or they will be taken from you.” Johanne was already pulling upon the bell, “The men would have been here before now, but they waited for the King and the King was at his prayers. Even Humphrey, rash though he is, isn't rash enough to intrude there. And, in this, he daren't act without the King. God keep Harry long upon his knees!”

It was Johanne, who, with her own hands, threw the small garments from the presses, tied them into bundles. Catherine sat and held her children; held them as though her frail arms could withstand armies.

“Now you must let them go,” Johanne said, irritable with fear. “The horses are waiting.”

There was a sound of feet heavy along the passage. The men were in the room.

“Madam,” the captain bowed, courteous, “you must give me the children.”

“Why?” she cried. “And where will you take them? And what harm have these innocents done?”

“I am a soldier under orders,” he said.

“And I mother to the lord King. Take care how you meddle in this.”

“I am a soldier,” he said again and waited.

She looked at her children—Edmund no more than a baby for all his nine years standing there white, and willing himself not to cry; Jasper, she could see, was frankly frightened. Suddenly he flung himself upon her. His crying rose sharp with fear.

She said, “Don't be afraid, little heart. Soon your father will come and together we'll bring you home. Be my brave boy, for yet a little while...till I am well again.” She turned to the captain. “Where do you take them?” she asked again.

“You must ask that of my lord of Gloucester.”

She turned again to her children. Edmund, very quiet, knelt to take her Farewell; she could see that it would soon be too much for him. She hurried the precious moments knowing that she might never see them again. But Jasper clung, his crying sharpened to a scream.

The captain advanced a step.

She bent, kissed the frantic fingers open; led the child forward.

“He is very young,” she made her lips smile, friendly. “Handle them gently,” she advised. “They are brothers to the King.”

Her head was up while they took her children away.

* * *

The pains were on her. She paced a little, sat a little, set to pacing again. And all the time she talked; she could not be done talking; it was as though talking, she released her soul.

“...and
Sister
, she said,
Sister
, the maggot crawling beneath the glory of Gloucester. She hates me; she's always hated me. Because of Jacque...dear Jacque whose soul sweet Christ assoil.”

For the moment she forgot her fear of Eleanor, her most bitter anger.

“Jacque is dead...and I cannot believe it, Jacque so full of life. Spitting blood, they say; and all the time fighting to live—she was always a fighter! So short her happiness, so simple and so dear. And now she is dead. We are of an age, she and I...should I not be dead, too? And so I should be, if the dark witch had her way. I could not like her, Johanne; not because of Jacque but because of herself; not because she took Jacque's place but because she stole it while it was yet Jacque's...Jacque's heart and her pride broken together. That she—the harlot—should presume to judge me! I have not been over-virtuous, Johanne, as the world sees it; and yet I have been faithful, too! faithful as any wife. And I should have been his wife but I was not let, I was not let...bound hand-and-foot—a Queen. And Humphrey whose life is an open scandal, he, to judge Owen and me! He had no right to marry her—common dirt. He should have kept her for his paramour. Let him flaunt her where he would, he should never have let her near me—A Valois and a Queen...”

A birth-pang took her. She stopped, jaw-dropped. When the pain passed her voice went whispering again in the quiet room.

“...forcing herself into my presence...and her wicked eyes gleaming and her wicked teeth gleaming. I was startled, I was shocked...as she meant, as she meant. Else I had sat still, the rug about me. But as God wills so He sends! And Owen, my dear love, is safe. And for that I thank you, Johanne. On my knees—if I could get so far. But the children! Had I listened to you they had been safe. The children...where are my children? Where have they taken them? Where? Where?”

Beneath the onslaught of pain she was growing a little wild. Johanne soothed her, hand upon knee, said for the hundredth time, “At Barking. Have you forgotten? The lady Abbess has them in her charge. They are well; and they are happy.”

“Yes,” she said, “yes. But they need me; they need their mother. Jasper is a baby...a baby. All my children within abbey walls, all, all!” She let out a wail. “My youngest I gave—isn't it enough for God? But not Edmund; not Jasper. I will have them out, I say. I will have them out!”

“And so you shall,” Johanne promised. And why, why had not Catherine petitioned the King while there was time—the precious time when Gloucester was away? “Your boys are so charming, Catherine, they win all hearts. I hope you may get your girl this time. I think you will...you carry your child low. She will be the world's beauty. A Queen, too, maybe. What shall you call her?”

Catherine's hands went to her forehead as though to rub away the thought of the little boys. “Margaret, perhaps. Or Jacine, that's a precious stone.”

“Margaret is precious, too, a pearl.”

Catherine nodded. “Margaret...Jacine...Jasper...precious, precious all...”

She was growing confused; she who had known none but easy labours was beaten now beneath the never-ending assault of pain. Body twisted in upon itself, face contorted with fear, with anger, she cried out to Johanne to take the strange woman away, the witch woman, with her dark and wicked eyes. And, then she cried out for her lover, sending his name out in thin cries of pain,
Owen...Owen...

No need to guess who had fathered her children.

* * *

“A girl,” Johanne told her.

“Margaret,” she said her voice weak so that Johanne must bend to the sound.

Johanne nodded; and did not tell her that the child would not live.

Towards evening she recovered a little, asked for the child. The smile she turned upon the pale infant was enough to make iron weep.

She is small, Johanne wanted to say, she will grow...She could not bring the lie upon her lips.

Catherine held the little head against her heart; the small mouth opened, making a seeking movement, fell upon her breast.

“She refuses me,” Catherine said in wonder, “she refuses me!” For a while she could not speak; then she said, “I bore four sons. The first I might not suckle—he was the King. Kings you would think would suck like other children. The Lord Jesus Himself did not disdain His Mother's milk...but so it was! And the others they took from me though my breasts ached. And now they ache again, they ache again. Now the game is played and I throw away all lies, now like any common woman I may suckle...the child...the child refuses...”

She asked no more about the child, the girl she had desired above all her children; above Henry's heir, even. It was as if she knew the child had died and could not bear the words to be said.

* * *

Once more the ring of men's feet in the chamber of the Queen.

My lord of Gloucester had commanded Madam Queen Catherine to the convent at Bermondsey.

She was not sorry to go. There was so little she wanted now. Owen. And the sight of her children. And the safety of them all. And those things she should have when she was well again...when she was well enough she would petition the King.

“Will Harry hear me, do you think?” she asked Johanne who supported her in the litter.

“I think he will.” Johanne smiled into the pale and wasted face. But for all that she was not so sure. Harry had a fierce, a virgin chastity. His adolescent curiosity turned from the warm life of the flesh, in fear; in disgust, almost. If he thought it right, though breaking Catherine's heart he broke his own, still he would refuse.

* * *

It was quiet in the convent—the peace of heaven. The sisters were kind, their hands gentle, their eyes pitiful.

The lump was still there, hard beneath her breast. It had not disappeared though her pregnancy was over; it had not even grown smaller...she had not expected it. It did not hurt; but it seemed to suck strength into itself, to be the one strong thing within her weak body. She was glad to lie still, the world nebulous between sleeping and waking. It seemed to her that the whole world was passing, the world she had known. Jacque was dead, who had been so pretty and so gay; whose high spirit Humphrey and Philip had broken between them...Jacque bubbling with laughter not knowing she was to be abandoned, robbed, imprisoned. But at least she had known happiness with her gentle knight...dear Jacque! She said her prayer for Jacque.

And for James. James who had sat next to her at her coronation feast, who had translated all the mottoes for her. How they had laughed! But James didn't laugh any more. He lay in his grave most foully done to death. He had been first her friend; and then traitor to her son's rights...but still he had been her friend; so she remembered him too, in her prayers.