The Queen's Lover (13 page)

There were tears in Christine's eyes as she came out through the gatehouse. They made her vision run and stream.

So, for a moment, she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing in the shadows under a tree outside, where the dappling of light and bark and grass and leaves was so confusing anyway.

Then she knew.

She called, in panic, "Catherine! Owain!" and watched the shifting shape that had been both of them disentangle itself and separate into two bodies, two sets of arms and legs; two downturned blushing faces.

There was no point in saying anything. There had been many disappointments in her life. She knew better than to let her anger out at once. She needed time to think. She lowered her own head to unknot the horses' reins.

She mounted.

"Come," she said coolly, not meeting their eyes. "We'll catch the others up if we hurry."

And she spurred her horse on.

Christine rode and, in the rhythm of the horses' hooves, thought. As the miles slipped by, she let go of her first furious thoughts--that her trust had been betrayed; that Owain, whom she'd come to think of almost as a son, or a disciple, had set out deliberately to besmirch the purity of a princess; and that Catherine had inherited her immoral mother's sluttishness if she was willing to ignore her royal blood and the prize of her virginity to satisfy a casual lust.

Still, it took many hundreds of paces through the forest before Christine was able to understand that she was more angry with herself than she was with either of these children. It was she who'd thrown them together, after all, thinking that Owain would show the younger children how to live through unhappiness. She looked now at the two backs swaying ahead of her; the two bowed young heads. So friendless, both of them, and
so beautiful: both of them so strangely left out of the life they found themselves living, worlds emptied of like-minded people; forced into silence. They'd started to talk to each other...She should have realized what kind of comfort they'd naturally find themselves seeking from each other. They were young...She had no one to blame for this but herself. Thank God she'd been able to nip it in the bud. No consequences. No one need know.

In another life--if Catherine had not been a princess of the blood, descended from Charlemagne and the kings of Troy, the purity of her line a sacred pact with God going back to the dawn of time--Christine, like anyone, might have rejoiced at this outcome. A love between these two young people, if there'd been nothing else at stake, might have been thought beautiful.

She sighed, and kicked her horse out of its trance. That was not to be. Best stick to reality.

Owain rode in front so no one could see the savagery on his face.

He ignored the branches slapping at him; he kept his horse nervously trotting and skittering. He didn't care about its frothing mouth today.

Inside his head, he was conducting a furious exchange with Christine. Inside his head, she'd become every dismissive Englishman he'd ever encountered. What about
my
blood? his own interior voice was shouting. I am descended from Ednyfed Fychan, Seneschal of the Kingdom of Gwynedd under Llywelyn the Great. I am descended from Iestyn ap Gwyrgant, the last King of Gwent. My family are the barons of Hendwr and the lords of Penmynydd and Englefield and Iscoed and Gwynioneth, the leaders of Anglesey. My blood is as noble as any. I grew up the cousin of a king! I could have married any princess I liked...back then...three or four years ago, when everything was still possible...

But he knew it was futile to protest.

He could hear the answers, crushing in their finality: A conquered race now. You're no one now. And: Even if you were
the Prince of Wales himself--even if the Welsh weren't ruled by the English--you still wouldn't be good enough for a Princess of France.

Catherine knew this was the end of Owain. He'd go...Her head drooped lower. And so would hope.

What a fool she'd been. What a fool. She should have...She realized that what she should be thinking was that she should have avoided letting herself feel this for a man she couldn't marry. He wasn't royal. She shouldn't have seen him as a man at all; only as a retainer. But all she actually felt was hot-cheeked shame that she'd been stupid enough to let Christine catch them.

She'd been shaking--shaking with happiness. Just for that moment; drowning in honey.

No, for weeks she'd been happy. Being with Owain was like being let out of prison. Other princes and princesses had a life at court--balls, and dresses, and expenses, and flirtations. But that hadn't started for Catherine and Charles; and, even for those admitted to it, court life only seemed to exist, these days, in muted, miniature form, behind closed doors. The children had always seemed to live in great wastelands of silence: with only the warmth of their friendship with each other and with Christine to sustain them. Then, suddenly, Catherine had found a new friend she could talk frankly to. They'd found a way to talk to each other. It wasn't just the kiss. If she didn't see Owain again, they wouldn't be able to talk together anymore.

It took her breath away. Her mind shied away from the thought that she might not see Owain again. She stared at the pommel in front of her and tried not to think. Her blood was racing.

They were almost at Paris when the trees thinned and they came out into fields. Dusk was falling. A ghostly moon was rising in the luminous sky; the evening star nearby.

She spurred her horse on. There'd be a moment, at least, before Christine caught on; caught up.

He turned as she came level with him. His glance was strained and desperate.

"Venus...your star," he murmured very quietly, and her heart turned over at the knowledge that they were both still playing the game of not disturbing Christine. His face, as he'd turned, had been so pale; so angry. But now, with her here, for one moment more, he was burning with the torturing fire of hope. "I don't know what I can promise," he said. "But I'll always..."

He paused, looking for something he could do; something he could say. Into the silence came the sound of Christine, just behind, clicking her tired horse into life.

Owain closed his eyes, put his hand on his temples, and composed his white face into skull-like immobility.

Then, very suddenly, without looking back, he cantered off.

Catherine saw the distant little figure by the Queen's house start running as soon as he saw her horse. But she ignored it, and kicked the horse on into a trot, straight toward the royal stables. There'd be time enough to talk to Charles later. She needed to compose herself first; to stop feeling so crushed by guilt; to try and erase the memory of Christine's wounded eyes, and Owain's bent head, and the silence.

But she heard Charles' pounding footsteps go on racing toward her. He threw himself into her arms as soon as she had her feet on the ground.

He buried himself in her, shaking. His face was hot and red and snotty. His eyes were swollen.

"I told the Saracen to tell you I'd gone!" she cried, lashing out with her tongue. "She knew!"

That startled him. He looked up with wide eyes. "She did tell me," he snuffled, warily.

"Then why are you crying?" she hissed, still full of guilty fury.

His eyes filled with tears again. He hadn't been panicking because she was gone. He hadn't expected her to shout at him when she got back, either. She'd got it all wrong.

She took a deep breath and tried again. She put her arms round his shaking shoulders and rocked him to and fro while he cried himself out. "I'm sorry," she said, over and over again.
"I didn't mean..." When his sobs quietened, she said gently: "What happened, darling, tell me?"

He fixed big, scared eyes on her. "I've got to get married!" he cried.

She stared back. "Who?" she said, without expression.

"Marie of Anjou," he whimpered, and his face puckered up again.

Catherine could see why. Their ten-year-old cousin Marie was solemn and very grand; always too worried about spoiling her beautiful and expensive clothes to want to play. "Big-nose!" Charles wailed. "I don't even like her!"

But Catherine could see why her mother would want this marriage. Marie's father was one of the most important of the French princes who opposed the Duke of Burgundy. Known as the King of Sicily, Marie's father was just back from years abroad, fighting over his various Italian land claims, to formally swear his loyalty to the princes allied, under the Count of Armagnac, against the common enemy, Burgundy. They'd need to keep him sweet with a good marriage (and what could be better than a marriage to the King's youngest son?). The situation was more dangerous than ever. She'd heard the pilgrim gossip on the road. Louis had written to her cousin of Burgundy, denouncing the Queen for making wrongful arrests of his men--and inviting Burgundy and his army back to Paris to save him from his mother. There was more trouble brewing, for sure.

Thinking aloud, she told Charles: "It's not so bad...you might get to bring your bride here...we could be together still...and if you have to go to them, it's only over the road to the Anjou hotel..."

"No," he squealed, back in his panic, burrowing once more into her arms. "That's the whole point! Mother says I'll have to go away! Right after the betrothal! To her mother's court! To Angers! I've been looking for you all day! But you weren't here! There was no one to tell! There was no one to tell!"

She clung to him, shocked; a child again too, feeling her brother's warmth, committing it to memory. Angers was two days' ride southwest. She'd never see Charles if he was there.
She bitterly regretted leaving him alone here, now she was forced to imagine him gone for good. She didn't want him to go. They were safe together. They were allies. They trusted each other; loved each other. There was no one else left. Owain would be gone too. There would be no one she could talk to. She shut her eyes.

She didn't want to be left behind, on her own.

SEVEN

Christine knew what Owain was going to say as soon as he walked into the scriptorium the next morning.

Anastaise grinned cheerfully at him, about to make one of her jokes about students. Then she stopped. He had his own traveling clothes on, not Jean's castoffs. He had his pack on his arm.

Christine stepped forward. She walked Owain to the window, away from Anastaise. She stared down at the burned-out house opposite. So many things had gone wrong here; it seemed the right place to heart his.

"Thank you for all your kindness," Owain said, very formally. "But I think after all I shouldn't take up that place you found me at the University."

She nodded. She'd known he would go.

She'd sensed his anger all through the silent ride back from Poissy. Never more than when, as she'd determinedly trotted her horse between his and Catherine's to make sure there were no more possibilities for contact, she'd heard him mutter, "...building walls around the Rose."

She'd thought: He's quoting. She'd known: he was quoting from the
Romance of the Rose
. He'd read it, despite her hatred of it. He wanted her to know he'd defied her. He was making her out to be Jealousy, building a tower to keep him from his love--blaming her for the cruelty of life, which was none of her doing.

The look that had passed between them then--quiet, intense anger--had meant farewell. The rest had been only a question of time.

She could see why he would go. Owain must have believed, for a while, that if he came to live in Paris he could escape the burden of his own reduced status altogether. She, Christine, had perhaps been too quick to encourage him in that belief. She'd been so taken with his spirited refusal to be cast down by bad luck; by the optimism that warmed everyone around him. Now he'd suddenly seen that he could never get away altogether from what the lost Welsh war had made him. The solace he thought he'd find in Paris had vanished once he'd realized that, even here, he still wasn't good enough for what he wanted most. Which, after all, wasn't learning, or friends, but just the usual goal of young men at the start of their lives: a girl, a love, and the one he wanted was right out of his reach. It was natural for him to be confused and angry. He was doing the right thing. He had to go; had to grapple with his own problems, alone. She just wished her heart didn't feel as empty as the charred shell of a home out there, over the street.

"Where will you go?" she asked.

"Back to my master," he replied, equally shortly.

She was so sorry for him; and so sad for herself. She'd miss him. But there was no more to say.

She followed him out into the courtyard. "Wait," she said.

He stopped, warily.

She ran back to the scriptorium, took up a book from the shelf, and, trying to ignore Anastaise's astonished eyes, ran back to give it to the tall Welshman.

She said, in a shy rush: "You're an intelligent man. Make yourself a learned one too, one day."

And the ghost of a smile came to her face.

Owain softened. "I will," he said quietly; "I promise." Then he added, in a mutter: "And I'm sorry. About. I didn't mean...to abuse your trust..."

No more words would come. But she was grateful for the few she'd heard.

Her eyes were stinging as she shut the courtyard door behind him. He was a good man; a noble man.

Owain still had the book in his hand when he came to mount his horse.

He looked at it through a blinding fog.

It was one of Christine's odd, personal love poems.

He opened it, right there in the stable, ignoring the restless pawing of the animal's hooves in the straw, and began to read.