Authors: Vanora Bennett
Duke Humphrey gave her a withering look. Ignoring that (the rules of the protectorate had been made up on the spot, and could be changed by the Council, and Duke Humphrey was, now he’d got rid of Bishop Beaufort, the leader of the Council), he finished: ‘I’ve told Warwick he can remove anyone he chooses from the household, too. So – no obstructive behaviour from anyone, do you understand? Make sure my orders are obeyed.’ With a brief, hostile bow, he moved away.
Catherine stared resentfully after her brother-in-law, letting her thoughts chase through her head. This disrespect would never have happened in France, she thought, proudly remembering the Court of Love, and the exquisite charm of the
princes, and trying not to remember the wars that had arisen out of that same French pride.
The hot, reckless response that came first to her mind was that she wouldn’t ever let Warwick lay a finger on her son, and he’d better not dare try to.
But Owain advised her to put aside all thoughts of resisting Humphrey’s changes. Owain went very quiet at first, when he heard that the Earl of Warwick would run the King’s household. But when, after a pause, he recovered his words, he quickly counselled Catherine: ‘Harry might thrive. He might be at just the age to enjoy having more men in his life. There might be more good in it than you realise. Warwick’s a hard man; a soldier. You don’t want to make an enemy of him needlessly. So, keep a close eye on things; but try and make the best of it, if you can.’
Catherine wasn’t sure she trusted Owain’s usually astute judgement on this point. There seemed to be something too quick about the way he was rushing out this appeaser’s opinion. But in the end, with no one to support her if she tried to rebel, she found herself agreeing that caution was probably the most prudent course. Her only patron in England had been swept away, leaving her surrounded by powerful enemies; her own freedom had been limited; and she was still a foreigner who didn’t understand these people’s ways. She’d have to treat Warwick with care. She couldn’t fight by herself. Warwick wasn’t quite of her rank – not quite a royal duke – but Humphrey stood too close behind him to take him on.
So the stern new order took shape. Instead of nursemaids, Harry was given four knights and four esquires of the body, all Beauchamps or other connections of the Earl of Warwick. He was also given his own doctor, the learned Master John Somerset, a wrinkled man of middle years, always cold, always wrapped in his furred robes, shivering.
‘You’ll like Master Somerset,’ Owain said quietly, catching her wrinkled nose when she first caught sight of him at the other end of the great hall at Windsor. (The royal household was confined now to four castles; her favourite, Eltham, was off limits.) ‘He’s a learned man. I met him at Oxford; he’s
studied at Cambridge too. Give him a chance. He’ll be good for Harry.’
So, for all her suspicion of the newcomers, Catherine tried to follow Owain’s guidance and make the best of things. Somerset and Owain began to spend time together in the evenings, in Somerset’s quarters (Owain’s, which she had never seen, she knew to be cell-like, too bare for receiving guests). She learned to feel affection for the old doctor, someone she could consult about Harry’s education and preferences and skills and trust to give her an honest answer. And although she didn’t warm instinctively to the Earl of Warwick’s hatchet face and thin, hard voice; although she was horrified when she saw the miniature suit of armour he’d had made for Harry being assembled around her son’s soft little body; she found, if she made an effort that she could, at least appreciate his loyalty to the English crown, his generous patronage of the poet John Lydgate, and, above all, his excellent French.
But she could no longer slip into Harry’s chamber at night and sit quietly watching over him, praying for a future of peace and calm for him. She didn’t dare venture through the antechambers, with their charge of young men snoring and groaning and sweating and belching and thrashing their naked young limbs out of their blankets and curtains. So she couldn’t know for sure whether her child still slept soundly and quietly through the night. She just had to hope for the best, and shut her mind to the rest of her thoughts.
‘He’s a good little boy,’ Master Somerset told her reassuringly every time she asked. ‘Very obedient. Very eager to please.’
But obedience wasn’t the quality the Earl of Warwick was supposed to instil in King Henry VI of England. Sometimes, on her anxious travels up and down stairwells, where the stone muffled and distorted sounds, she could swear she heard Harry’s voice screaming in fear. She saw so little of Harry now – glimpses, between bouts of riding and swordplay and archery, at meals or chapel – that she couldn’t check his little body for bruises and whip marks. No one ever admitted chastising him. There was nothing she could do.
Once or twice she caught him hurrying somewhere, on
mysterious errands of his own, set by his masters in the new world of men, with a busy, worried look on his face. She’d stop, leaning down, hugging him very tenderly, close enough at last to smell the innocence of him, and drawing him hastily aside into whatever the nearest quiet place was. ‘My darling,’ she tried, ‘I’ve seen so little of you lately; tell me what you’re doing today …’
But he’d just submit to her embraces without enthusiasm. Look vacantly past her. Say, ‘My lord of Warwick will be angry if I’m late.’ And wriggle away. Perhaps, she thought disconsolately, trying to comfort herself, all boys distanced themselves from their mothers in this way sooner or later – he was five now, not a baby any more – and perhaps all mothers felt the same distress.
It was only at the next Christmas festivities that her vague fears were given definite shape. When, after the New Year gift-giving, with the minstrels wailing away in the gallery and the hall full of young men, Harry gave the gawky young earl of Oxford a hard, suspicious look as he fastened the present that had been selected for him – a gold collar – round the youth’s Adam’s apple, with sudden suspicion, Catherine thought, ‘He doesn’t like John de Vere. I can see it.’
She gave Oxford a hard look herself. She caught herself midway through it and shook her head. No, there was no harm in Oxford. He was a sweet boy; awkward but kind. He’d caught and set free the pigeon that had come fluttering into the hall last week. He’d never have done Harry any harm. She must have been imagining that look.
She turned away and began chatting to Master Somerset, who was red-cheeked and talkative after too much claret. So she didn’t quite see the action that hushed everyone in the hall. By the time she whipped round, following the other staring eyes, Harry was standing with the gold collar in his hand again. Its clasp was broken. Oxford, who she now realised she’d heard yelp with surprise and pain, was rubbing his neck and looking bewildered. She realised Harry must have ripped the chain off the older boy’s neck. Defiantly, Harry turned away from Oxford and walked off to another young
man she hadn’t yet spoken to – a Polish knight visiting the court, a tall young man with pale blue eyes and a snub nose. There’d been no gift for him. Harry must be troubled by what he saw as an injustice, Catherine thought. He was only a little boy, after all. ‘Sigmund,’ Harry piped self-importantly, holding up the collar to the newcomer, who, mortally embarrassed, blushed to the roots of his white-blond hair and looked around in agony for guidance from other eyes as to whether to accept this stolen present. Harry looked at the foreigner with adoration. ‘A gift from the King.’
The Earl of Warwick wasn’t in the room, Catherine saw with relief. It was Master Somerset who caught the Polish youth’s eye and nodded that he should take the gift.
The crowd settled and moved, with backs turned to the scene, as the onlookers pretended they weren’t aware of the King’s odd behaviour. Catherine saw Master Somerset quietly approach Sigmund, beckoning. He clearly planned to wait until Harry’s attention was elsewhere, then reclaim the collar. But little Harry had trustingly stretched his hand up to the young knight’s and was walking him away to a window seat, chatting to him in his high child’s voice. Blushing deeper than ever, Sigmund made helpless eye and shoulder signals to the doctor. They could all see there was nothing he could do.
Catherine hadn’t seen Owain. But he was there, moving with the swirling crowd. ‘The gold ring,’ he said quietly as he passed. ‘You could give it to Oxford. Amends.’
She looked down at her hand. She was wearing the gold ring John of Bedford had sent Harry for Christmas three years ago – a foolish present for a child – which Harry, on Dame Butler’s advice, had given her last year. She nodded. Owain had an instinct for these things. That was the right course of action.
Oxford was standing alone, still rubbing his neck with one hand. No one wanted to go up to him. No one wanted to be involved. Coming close, Catherine said quietly, ‘He’s very young,’ and shook her head, ‘but I am sorry for the pain he caused you.’ She slipped the ring into John de Vere’s huge, raw-boned, skinny hand. ‘It was my fault; a mistake with the
presents. He knew this was the one meant for you, not the collar. But of course he shouldn’t have made the exchange like that … are you all right?’
The young earl flushed up; his eyes went bright and soft at the gentleness of her voice. He mumbled his thanks – ‘a beautiful gift’ – bowed politely and, with dignity, retreated to the shadows at the edge of the hall.
There was an angry bruise on Harry’s face that evening when Catherine came across him on the stairs. ‘Who did that to you?’ she asked indignantly. He didn’t answer. He just came into her arms, keening. She sat with him in the nearest alcove, feeling the stone cold against her skin, cradling him as he sobbed himself to exhaustion then began rocking against her, to and fro, humming and droning, staring at the sky. Rocking him in her turn, trying to restore a rhythm to his jerky movements that might calm him into sleep, she was suddenly, terrifyingly transported in her mind back to the white room where her father had once felt safe. To that other beloved figure, rocking and murmuring and staring at the birds wheeling free in the sky.
‘Rock-a-bye,’ she crooned under her breath, as sweetly as she could, trying to sing this child’s sadness away. It wasn’t the same, she told her fearful heart as she sang. It wasn’t the same.
Owain had told Harry to watch himself around the Earl of Warwick more times than he could recall. He’d squat down by the child and put his arm round Harry’s shoulder and say, man to man: ‘Your master likes discipline. He always has. So – don’t forget. Be as good as you can for him.’
Once Harry had looked seriously back at him and asked: ‘How do you know? Did you know him when you were a boy, too?’
Owain nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said briskly. ‘I did. He ran your father’s household when your father was Prince of Wales. And he was strict then.’
Catherine did her best to keep her fears about Harry’s treatment and his behaviour to herself, and in proportion. If she could do nothing else, she could keep her dignity.
At least she still had Owain. She needed her walks with him and their quiet talks a little more every day. She’d come to rely so completely on his advice and his company. However much he’d hated the way he’d grown up, his hard start in life had taught him how to survive; and she was grateful to him for sharing his expertise. With him at her side she could find a careful way through any storm.
It was the realisation that Owain would be leaving her – even sooner than Harry – that weighed most heavily on her spirits as her son turned seven. After Harry’s birthday the household would have less than another year in its present shape, with Catherine, at least in theory, still running things. After that, when the seventh year was up, Harry would assume the crown in his own right and the Council’s protectorate, theoretically at an end, would be transformed, in practice, into direct control of Harry by Duke Humphrey. She couldn’t bear to think of that moment; for the past seven years she had avoided letting it into her mind at all. Now it was almost upon them.
Echoing her thought, kicking snow away from his robes as they paced around the inside of the walls at Windsor, on the December day after Harry’s birthday, Owain said: ‘Less than
a year left.’ His breath was a white cloud in sharp sunlight; his expression was unreadable; but the words made her catch her breath. Until now, no one had said them out loud. Now they were down to months, and to daily dread: of the humiliations to be expected at every stage of the way, and partings, coming soon.
‘It will be my time soon too,’ Owain went on, with his gaze lowered as if he were watching his feet kicking rhythmically out from under his robes. ‘They’re expecting me back at St Mary’s at Michaelmas next year.’
September, she thought: nine months away. The cold fingers of fear were clutching at her heart.
‘What will I do when both of you have gone?’ she asked desolately, thinking of all the other French prisoners of one sort or another, walled up in England, gasping for air. Her mother-in-law, Jeanne of Navarre, old and mad in her castle, with no one left for company but a few old maids and a parrot in a cage. Charles of Orleans, still holed up in one country residence or another, hunting, writing his melancholy poetry. Jacqueline of Hainault had been lucky to get away. No one in England liked the French. There would be no pity for Catherine either once she’d lost the protection that being her son’s custodian had so far afforded her. Humphrey would treat her no better than he had the other French prisoners. She’d be walled up too, and left to die alone.
Owain stopped walking. Catherine stopped too. Glancing sideways at him – they were so used to this, pacing side by side around the inside of castle walls, voicing their thoughts carefully, not looking at each other – that she was surprised to find a boyishly irresolute look on his face. He’d become so composed in all this time. She’d forgotten that look.
He stood looking at her, not seeming to notice the bitter wind flapping his hood back from his face. He was biting his lower lip as he thought.
‘What will you do? I don’t know,’ he said at last, and his voice was as uncertain as his eyes. ‘I think about it often.’