Crown in Candlelight (38 page)

And then he knew the nature of his vague disease, and why Jeanne la Picarde had ceased to please him.

Together they circled Paris eastward to enter by the royal gate under the headless stone figure of St Denis. It was Advent Sunday. Crowned, Henry and Katherine went first, on matching horses, followed by the Burgundians and King Charles, no longer in his closed litter but mounted, with Isabeau a few paces behind. Bishops and Archbishops waited in a sunburst of rich vestments, bearing the relics of the Passion pledged by St Baldwin to the Sainte-Chapelle. The reliquary, borne under a silk canopy, was dulled by the November damp. The day was cold, unpleasant; the bellying wall of the old town, the Enceinte Philip-Augustus, was cloyed with moisture. Katherine folded her hands within her sleeves; a knight led her horse. The relics were offered for Henry to kiss. Once again he asked they should be taken first to Charles. While the priests moved in procession between the stamping, tired horses, he spoke softly to Katherine.

‘The journey has wearied you. We shall soon be lodged.’

‘No, I’m well,’ she answered, and as he turned away again, she searched the narrow, clever, close-cropped profile and, dismayed, knew that he himself was far from well. He had that look, an ageing fleshlessness about him, the pallor showing through the war-weathered complexion, the too-straight posture employed to combat what could be a slight pain or a crippling agony. Could nothing ever be perfect? She had eagerly anticipated Paris and returning cherished, protected, to exorcize all frightful memories. Determination blossomed: I will nurse and heal him. I will have recourse to the old remedies of Dame Alphonse. Given with love and prayer, these can prove effective. I will be his doctor, the, only one he can trust to keep a close mouth. He is sick, yet thinks only of my welfare! And yet—and yet this same man will hang his dearest friend for treachery. Would he, I wonder, ever show me that ruthlessness? I think, I trust, it would need to be a mortal sin … She laid a hand on his sleeve, and he turned to smile at her, a smile severe with pain.

The blessing over, the procession moved through the precincts of St Eustache, by Les Halles towards St Honoré, and everywhere there was a pageant. A dozen St Denises knelt before the block, to rise triumphant. Everywhere choristers gilded strophes of praise, and even the nuns of the Célestins had come out to bow. On the corners the conduits belched wine. Men and women were falling drunk, and Katherine felt ashamed of the city. And with the drunken desperate gaiety, came a whispering: there goes the foreigner. See how Charles takes second place? Our King is Henry?
No King of ours!
The pageantry, music, prayers, were all a sham. There was a rash of outrage under the smooth skin of welcome. And in the next street loomed the cause, tangible, horrible. Three dead infants lay on a dungheap, not a morsel on the pathetic wasted bones. Then, through the gaunt eyes of the revellers, Katherine saw how the long siege had weakened Paris. The civil strife within had bred starvation as surely as in Rouen. Some who guzzled at the festive conduits were like living skeletons. Like pictures in her old breviary—three pretty women hawking and dancing, and on the facing page the same three stripped of flesh, entrails visible. The vast and incontrovertible lesson of mortality.

She shivered, wrapping about her the mantle of Icelandic wolfskin Henry had given her, trying to ignore the whispers which, now recognized, grew more insistent. She wanted to cry aloud: your hunger is not my husband’s fault! The accursed warring dynasty of Valois is to blame! Acknowledge the saviour who brings you peace! I blame my brother Charles, and that wicked wretch riding behind with her fixed lascivious smile. I blame Burgundy and Armagnac. France is Henry’s now. France and England are one, and I am their mother.

‘Harry.’ She spoke quietly, averting her eyes and mind from the ugliness and hostility, though watching him, she knew he felt it too. ‘Are we to lie at the Louvre?’

‘You and I. Your father has expressed his wish to go to the Hôtel de St Paul.’

‘He was very unhappy there, long ago. Perhaps he wishes to face his demons.’

He twisted on his horse to study her. ‘To face his demons …a good phrase, Katherine. Anyway, that is what he wants.’

‘And my mother?’

‘She wishes to come to the Louvre.’ He saw her eyes cloud, and said: ‘I can command her, you know.’

‘I think,’ said Katherine quietly, ‘all women should be with their husbands. Also …’

‘Also, she should not be given the chance to steal more jewels,’ said Henry, and laughed aloud. She had seldom heard him laugh before. It went oddly with his stern, fateful agelessness. But she laughed too, even though they were passing by the end of a bread queue stretching all the way from Les Halles, and that a grey harridan was shaking her fist at them and crying in outrage: ‘Eight deniers for a stick of bread!’

‘Queen Isabeau shall lie at the Hôtel de St Paul,’ he said, and Katherine kissed him with her eyes.

While the people chewed roots and haggled with the extortionate food merchants, the dignitaries of Paris had hung cloth of gold for the royal party. Near the palace a crowd waited, forgetting their hunger to gape. The cheering began as Katherine appeared. As she rode her horse along the costly carpet laid to the gate of the Louvre, wild compliments singed her ears, praising her beauty, her bearing, her new majesty. Charles and Isabeau were greeted with equal enthusiasm. Very occasionally someone cried diplomatically. ‘God guard King Henry!’ She longed to take his hand and hold it high, give him a rightful share of the affection lavished on her. For, seeing his unsmiling face, his rigid pose, the people ceased even their lukewarm praise and turned from him, muttering. What a vain hope that Paris could ever love him! They acknowledge him as conqueror and arbiter, but they will never love him. I shall love him, in place of Paris and the world. And Poperin pears are said to be good for his complaint. I shall have some placed before him at supper.

But there were no pears to be had, and anyway that evening he ate nothing. She had little speech with him; he was intent throughout the feast on what John of Bedford had to say. They leaned close, talking very seriously, though in the noisy packed hall she could catch hardly a word. Also she had a new companion at her left hand, and a surprising one. King James I of Scotland, seemingly unblemished by his years of captivity, was a plumpish, pleasant young man in his mid-twenties, and he talked, in good French, as frantically as if he had just discovered speech.

‘
Ma reine
,’ he said, eating fast and looking about him bemused. ‘This is a privilege. I did not think I would be honoured to join the feast today.’

She let him talk. Fourteen years was a long time to be imprisoned. She asked him about the Tower of London, where Charles of Orléans had first been taken.

‘One has all one needs. I was on my way to be schooled in France when King Henry Bolingbroke’s army took my ship off Flamborough Head. In the Tower I continued my education. I have my poetry. Chaucer! my dear master, my inspiration!’ He watched in childlike pleasure as an entertainer in the body of the hall swallowed fire and danced on his hands.

‘I would give my life to be truly free again,’ he said sadly.

‘But then you would be bound by death,’ said Katherine. ‘Cannot your countrymen ransom you?’

‘They’re bent only on fighting. They scarcely recognize me. Madame …’ Instinctively she knew that a request was imminent. It must be common knowledge that with Henry, she had some persuasive powers. To wit, Jacqueline’s desires, which he had not refused. Indeed, he had admitted that since signing the Treaty of Canterbury with Sigismund of Bohemia he had the Holy Roman Empire on his side. As for Pope Martin, now supreme, the Great Schism having been healed by England, dispensations had been granted and could be again, to annul Jacqueline’s marriage to Brabant … She looked at Henry now, tenderly, at his grave gaunt cheek inclined towards Bedford, then she turned back to James.

‘What is it you wish of me?’

‘If the King’s Grace would only let me stay at large …’

‘You would need to affiance yourself wholly to his cause, and fight under his standard.’

‘This I’d do.’ Then, more softly: ‘There’s something else … Madame, I am a poet come face to face with a living poem. I saw her walking in the gardens below the Maiden’s Tower. Her name—’ his voice shook—‘is Joan Beaufort, niece of your great Bishop. Madame—’ he pushed his trencher of food away—‘if you know anything of love … Before, I was almost content. But now …’

I know of love, thought Katherine. She said: ‘You wish to marry her?’ That’s a match which might not displease Henry, for Joan is his relative, albeit by bastard blood. Such an alliance with the troublesome Scots could be useful. See how politic I am becoming! She smiled delightfully at the thought, and James, watching her, desired the married state more than ever. Music, sweet and plangent, curled about the hall from the minstrel troupe. Katherine, her glance unseeingly brushing Owen’s bright bent head, said: ‘Be easy, my lord. I will help you, to my power.’

Henry was rising from the dais, the company following suit. John of Bedford still kept close to him, talking tersely, spreading his hands. In looks they were not unalike. He had the same brown eyes and cropped hair, but his face was fleshy in comparison with Henry’s. She had seen his full lips smile kindly, but at present they were tight with some ruthless disquiet. On Henry’s arm she left the chamber between bowing French and English, and, with her women, went to her chamber to wait for him. She did not mean to sleep, but she was weary from the long day.

She was awakened about midnight. He stood fully clothed by her bed, with a taper in his hand. Its wavering light explored the bones and hollows of his face. She sat up. From the antechamber came the sound of peaceful snoring. He had come so quietly that none had awakened.

‘Harry, you should rest,’ she whispered.

He set down the light and sat upon the bed. He began almost absently to stroke her bare shoulder and the swathes of rich dark hair.

‘I have been praying,’ he said. ‘I know now the true nature of my malady. John told me this evening. I have been bewitched.’

‘Bewitched!’ A sudden chill gripped her brow and spread to her throat. She began to cough. His long fingers moved to the source of the cough, and soothed it into silence.

‘My stepmother, Joanna of Navarre. She’s always hated me. She has laid a curse on me back in England, to waste my bowels in agony and weaken my power. Being the widow of old Duke John, she still feels allegiance towards Brittany and resents the truce I made with them … her Spanish blood is versed in sorcery. I never knew her intent was as fierce as this. She grudged me the jewels and money I had from her for my campaigns. But I left her endowed with enough for her comfort. By the Mass! I’ve never warred with a woman before!’

‘They’re much as men,’ murmured Katherine. He gave her a cynical look, but went on stroking her, and talking.

‘She had accomplices: Randolf, her Franciscan confessor, and two members of her household skilled in demonology. The truth came out before my brother left England. She has compassed and imagined my death in the most horrible manner that can be devised.’

He spoke almost with excited triumph.

‘I’m glad that I know,’ he said. ‘I have warned God and our Blessed Lady. They have always fought for me. I have an army in that other world.’

‘How goes the ailment now?’ whispered Katherine.

‘Much easier.’ He looked at her ardently. ‘Katherine, do you still long for England?’

More and more, she told him. If only to see him receive the worship he deserved.

‘Then we’ll be there, shortly after Christmas. Will that please you? The people will fall down at the sight of you. You will be crowned in Westminster.’

She said: ‘It is Harry the people will cry for, not Katherine. She will be busy with her prayers, for your safe coming and going, your eternal protection.’ She knelt up on the bed, her long hair mantled them both. She held him close. ‘None shall harm you, while I live.’

‘My Katherine,’ he said, deeply moved. He put her from him so he could look at her. ‘This I must tell you. When I first came to France in blood and justice, you were the prize I sought, the proof of my endeavours. You understand.’

Smiled, ‘Harry, I know, I understand.’

‘But never—’ and he smoothed back her hair and began slowly to kiss each long gleaming eye—‘never did I dream that I would love you so.’

The welcome began from the moment they were carried ashore at Dover on the stout backs of the Barons of the Cinque ports, of which Henry was Warden. It excelled any Katherine had known and was almost terrifying in its extravagance. It was Candlemas Day and the sea was fresh and lively, with great waves running across the tide as if to claw at the sheer cliffs, whose white chalk was ribbed with lichen like a precious mosaic. An enormous English lord had plucked her from the longboat as if she were a kitten. She clung to the piled furs about his neck, sorrowing for the ruin of his velvet skirts in the salt water, though this seemed to bother him not at all. As he carried her he cried praises, snatched from his lips by the roar of the sea. A thousand people were on the beach and a multitude blackened the cliff-top. Square banners and pennoncelles blew wildly, golden croziers and embroidered canopies borne above the clergy caught the February light all along the edge of the waves. Trumpets scored the air with frantic, acid braying and seabirds screamed. A choir broke into the
Deo Gratias
, and was drowned by a massed cheer so violent with excitement that it jolted Katherine’s heart. A few yards away Henry rode the neck of a vast baron as he might a horse, stretching his arms high in greeting as they neared the shore. Behind, the Duke of Bedford, the Earls of March and Warwick, James of Scotland and the other lords were being rowed ashore. In the anchored fleet were hundreds more of Henry’s great captains and counsellors, waiting their turn together with the Household and the ladies, among them Jacqueline, half mad with joy. Katherine wondered about her eight white horses. When last seen they were being winched aboard a raft; she hoped they would be handled gently.