Wife to Henry V: A Novel

by Hilda Lewis

  “Peace!” Henry said. “Peace! I claim nothing but my lawful rights and everywhere the Armagnacs harry my men. They have closed up the Seine and my garrison is starving—Harfleur, my Harfleur that I won with English blood. You talk of peace while my English bleed and starve!”

  Sigismund cast an eye upon the steel-cold young man and talked no more of peace. He collected the precious gifts Henry had given him, and, poor man, gave in return his greatest treasure, the authentic heart of St. George.

  * * *

  “The King of England collects his fleet,” King Charles said, mumbling in his beard, biting at his beard. “Carracks and barges and ballingers...and his dockyards turning out ships without number.”

  “Little, little ships,” Isabeau said as one comforts a child, holding her spaced fingers to show how small. “He must be hard put to itl For what are ballingers but merchantships with a few guns! As for the famous carracks...”

  “The Jesus and the Grâce Dieu” his voice dropped in awe. “And the Trinity and the Holy Ghost. How can we hope to stand against such godly ships?”

  “God is not deceived. He can take care of such tricks,” she said, brisk.

  “But there is worse, far worse. Have you heard?” He stopped, looked about him, whispered with careful articulation, “He has the heart of St. George—the true heart, the very heart.”

  “We have a more potent heart,” Isabeau said smiling still. “The heart of our daughter. When did a dead man's heart weigh against the heart of a living woman—if she is pretty enough.”

  “You blaspheme. And you talk in riddles—hard riddles.” He was growing fretful. “The heart of St. George, the heart of England. Sigismund should not have done that, Sigismund is our friend.”

  “It is not true, believe it. Would a friend play so vile a trick?” And how long, she wondered, could a woman endure to be tied to this...this thing? “We shall keep our France, every yard. And maybe we shall win England, too; all England. That would be fine, you would like that!” she said, smiling coaxing.

  “The heart,” he said again, “the heart of St. George. And where are our own saints, tell me that!” Sickness was driving away the warm colour, he had the waxen look of a corpse. “It was mad to give the heart to him. The Emperor is mad. And you are mad. And the whole world is mad, mad, mad...” His eyes were pin-pointed with anger, with fear. He was dribbling upon his beard; his fingers crooked, plucked and plucked again.

  Isabeau pulled upon the bell.

  When they had dragged the King away she turned, humming, towards her chamber—and to pleasanter company.

  * * *

  Sa belle fille aux blons loriaulx,

  Et elle a sy fresche couleur

  Qu'avoir doilt ami de valeur,

  Et fu belle que fleur de may...

  sang Catherine. The little song they had made for her went well with the lute. How would it go in English? She was glad they had made her learn English when she was a child and lazy. She knew that now she was sixteen and grown-up.

  ...His beautiful daughter...She frowned; she was not minded to drag her father into this; she tried again. The pretty young lass...Too simple! She walked about the room, humming, trying out the words. At last she had it!

  The charming princess all crowned with gold,

  Her colour as fresh as the spring I am told.

  A lusty lover be hers I pray,

  For she is as fair as flower-of-may.

  She picked up the lute, complacently watching the young, white arm moving across the strings.

  Outside Isabeau listened, her hand on the hasp. What sort of girl was this Catherine to sing so lightly and her brother new-dead—John returned to take Louis' place? Two sons...two Dauphins, dead...dead.

  Her face twisted.

  Young John. She hadn't seen him since he left, a little boy for Holland, until she'd looked upon him dying at Compiègne. Abscess of the ear—that was Burgundy's tale. Poisoned by Burgundy himself, some said, because he wouldn't jump to the crack of the whip, wouldn't sell his country to the English. Who would have thought little John had so much courage? Poisoned by his mother—they said that, too, spitting out again the old lying wickedness. John, oh John…

  She stood biting upon her lips. Well, youth is short enough, God knows. Let the girl sing while she could I She lifted the hasp.

  In spite of herself irritation took her; the girl was so heartless, so careless, so fresh and so young—irritation and perhaps a little jealousy.

  “Your father is sick again and I must think for all. Think and think again until my head reels. All the time weighing, all the time pondering, balancing this against that. Who is the safer ally? Burgundy's a sly snake and no friend of mine; but he's strong, he's strong. The Armagnacs are strong too, in the south; but Paris hates them. And besides, they favour young Charles...”

  Catherine said nothing; the words of the song rang in her ears, her fingers longed for the lute.

  “I think...” Isabeau sank her bulk on to a stool, “I think, sometimes, my son Charles hates me.”

  “Charles loves no-one but himself.”

  “I speak of hating” Isabeau said. “Oh,” she said and wrung her hands. “There's your father out of his mind, and your brother helpless in the hands of the Armagnacs. They favour him—he's Dauphin now; and because he's a fool; and, to spite Burgundy, of course! But they don't trust him and no wonder. No-one trusts him and he trusts no-one, poor boy. And all the time France runs with blood. And now, as if that weren't enough, we shall have the English upon us again. They will burn the good fields again and destroy the harvest and there will be nothing left—nothing but misery and want. And for what? Haven't we offered enough to buy England off, enough?”

  Catherine said, but she dared not look at her mother, “Why should he take your price if he can have the crown, too?”

  “That he cannot have and never will. And he knows it. But with him it is all fighting, fighting, fighting...a lust for blood.”

  Catherine said slowly, “My father is sick; and Charles poor stuff for a King. And there's no-one in all France you can trust. Henry of England is strong; and he is just. Would it be so bad a thing—” she forced herself to look full at Isabeau, “if he took me and the crown together?”

  “You are mad,” Isabeau said, harsh, “mad as your father!”

  “Don't use that word, don't dare to use it!” Catherine said, chalk-white, forgetting fear of Isabeau in an even greater fear.

  “Don't dare to take that tone with me or I'll have you whipped, Queen though you hope to be! You've a cold heart, girl, for all you're hot enough for that man's bed. A cold heart and little sense.”

  “It is good sense, I think; and good heart, too.” And now the colour was back in Catherine's cheeks. “Burgundy and Armagnac—pull devil, pull baker; and so, between them, France bleeds. It may be—” and her eyes were steady; whoever her father had been, she was at this moment, unflinchingly her mother's child, “that peace is to be found in King Henry's bed.”

  Isabeau laughed her sharp, neighing laugh. “Your Henry is hotter for war than for the bride-bed. You must wait for your bedding, my girl, until that lust's satisfied. And then—if you are the price of peace—why then you shall be paid. But not before. And not unwilling, neither, it would seem.”

  The charming princess all crowned with gold...

  Velvets sweeping the litter of the corridor, Isabeau heard the cold, sweet voice, the small tinkle of the lute.

  * * *

  Charles, King of France, spurred his horse, left his attendants behind. But they would follow, follow like dogs a hare, a rabbit, a rat. Follow, follow. Sweet Christ, if a man is not to be driven mad again, he must be alone, alone sometimes!

  He drove the spur deeper. The April wind, the beat of hooves stirring the dust, powdered his hair, his eyebrows, his beard, filled in the melancholy creases of his face. And yet he felt neither glad nor sad; but empty—empty as a shell. It was always so after a sickness.

&nbs
p; He had come to himself, suddenly, in the dark and filthy den; he had roared aloud for a tub of hot water, for soap, for towels, for clean clothes. He had had his valets whipped for their neglect of his sacred person. And now he was free again in the sweet April weather. It was good to be in the clean clear air after the stench of the cell. His mind recognized it; but his heart was empty of any joy, empty still.

  Now he was for the woods of Vincennes...the woods...

  In the emptiness of his heart, feeling began to stir; the thorn his son had planted there began to prick. It was when he had gone from the King's rooms cleansed and robed to find his wife that the boy had come from his own rooms and led him by the arm...little Charles, unbelievably the Dauphin...

  A tear welled, ran down the runnels of dust.

  Young Charles had taken him away from the Queen's room—the Queen was not in Paris. The Queen was at...Vincennes.

  There had been something odd about young Charles, something sly.

  “Well why not?” he had asked his son. In Paris the young leaves must be already dark with dust but in Vincennes the woods were fresh.

  Young Charles had reached up on tip-toe, whispering, whispering.

  For a moment he had not believed his ears. Isabeau was free with her loves but proud; too proud to stoop to a low lout! Charles had his own reasons for slandering his mother; but Charles, young as he was, was subtle. He would smear her, not with lies but with the truth.

  Why did his son hate his mother so? His son...? Was Charles truly his son? And Catherine, pretty Catherine? Was she, too, his brother's by-blow?

  For one hateful moment he was glad Burgundy had killed Orléans and left him to die like a dog in the gutter.

  He passed a thin hand over his forehead; already it was beginning to tremble.

  Fool, fool to torment himself so! Charles was Dauphin now and a bastard could never be that!

  Aware of some knot in his reasoning he tried to pick at it; was forced to leave it. Were they trying to drive him crazy between them, his son and his wife?

  Well, he was riding to Vincennes to find out. By God if she had betrayed him with a base paramour, to prison with her and there let her rot!

  He must know, he must; but not now, not now. In this moment he could not endure to know; he was too near his sickness. He turned his horse. When he met his attendants all a-gallop, he could have laughed at the fear in their faces; the fear that looked sidelong from their eyes.

  He rode, slow with fatigue. Thank God, for Paris at last! A man came riding through the Charenton gate, a young man riding, easy, riding gay. He did not give the King right of way; he nodded gay, as to any traveller and set spur to his horse.

  He did not so much as look at the King—the King whom he thought locked in the dark cell; but the King looked at him—the base fellow riding like a lover to the spring woods of Vincennes.

  * * *

  She sat rigid within the narrow chamber. In prison, Isabeau the Queen, for all the world to laugh at! The thought drove her frantic.

  It was as much as she could do not to beat upon the door, to scream her insults upon the mad fool who had put her there, and upon her unnatural son. But most of all she wanted to shout her insults to the thrice-damned fool riding by, careless of the King. Well, he had paid for that! He was dead; the fine young body that hers knew so well, twisted by torture, fed to the fish in the dark Seine water. But he had not paid enough, not nearly enough, the fool whose low breeding had brought her within prison walls. A gentleman may cuckold the King but he must never abate one jot of deference—a man of breeding would have known it.

  She rose, wandered about the small room, set the blood flowing again in the long, cramped limbs.

  But even then she had not taken her madman seriously at first. He had known for years how she consoled herself—his own bed was far from virtuous. She hadn't known, then, that her son was at the bottom of it...young Charles she had taken for a fool. Had she, perhaps, been mistaken? Could it be that Charles was both dire and subtle? A pity she had not considered that before! For when she had been banished to Blois she had laughed in her mad fool's face. He could not do without her!

  A pity she had laughed. For now she found herself in Tours—imprisoned. And it was her husband who consoled himself—his latest mistress already pregnant. Well, let him console himself with all the ladies of Paris—he had lust enough for all his sickness. Had he controlled his lusts in youth he would not be the sick fool he was now!

  She paced restless, hands tight-locked.

  Charles her husband and Charles her son, dallying with love, taking their pleasure, both of them, while Henry of England hammered at the door. And she, she the only one to drive him back, fast-shut in prison-walls! This was no time for private angers; that time would come; but not now, not now...

  She came back to her chair, sat there, willing her mind to its work.

  Armagnac or Burgundy? One or the other she must take for her ally.

  But which, which?

  Burgundy was her enemy. Armagnac had been her friend—her more than friend; and yet he had betrayed her. Without his nod young Charles would never have dared to show his teeth.

  Her mind, taking her over the same old ground, found a new point, seized upon it.

  Old enmities may be, if not forgotten, forgiven; but sweet friendships once betrayed—never.

  Burgundy then. Burgundy.

  CHAPTER VII

  The charming princess all crowned with gold...Catherine pushed her lute away with a pettish hand. The English crown was as far away as ever, to say nothing of the crown of France. And she was bored with the summer woods of Vincennes. Yet here she must stay by command of her brother, that same young Charles she had bullied and laughed at not so long ago. She was not to be risked in Paris, he said; the air was pestilent with rotten corpses.

  A precious pawn and she knew it; but a pawn upon the losing-side—the Queen taken, the King constantly checked by madness.

  The Queen taken. She felt lonely, abandoned, missing her mother's sharp tongue, the acid wit, the raw humour, the grim courage. She could not be shocked by Isabeau's easy loves; who was there more virtuous? Not her father—there was always a woman in his bed. Louis had been a byword for wenching; and Charles, young as he was, his virtue was already spotted. As for Burgundy they said of him that a woman would be his death; and his son, Michelle's precious husband; though he had given his wife no children, he had fathered half-a-dozen brats already. So why turn upon her mother who had the best excuse of them all?

  Because they feared her; feared that quick, unscrupulous brain. France shall be lost by a woman and won again by a woman. It was an old prophecy. The Queen was the first woman—so her enemies said. But, if France lost was England's gain, why then she herself might be the second...duty chiming with pleasure; and she, Catherine, the Saviour of France.

  But meanwhile, awaiting that glorious day, she had no-one to talk to; she could almost wish Michelle back from Ghent. But patience, a little patience! They had thrust her mother into prison—but they would be hard put to it to keep her there. Her will was stronger than bolt or bar; she would find her way.

  There was a flap of feet outside her door—Guillemote, her woman.

  “Madam, madam,” Guillemote, breathless, wrung plump hands and could say no more.

  Catherine was hard put to it not to shake the words out of the silly creature standing there awkward and slow and frightened.

  “Leave wringing your hands, girl,” she said, though Guillemote was thirty if a day. “Now what's the matter?”

  “The English.” Guillemote choked upon the word. “Landed!”

  Catherine felt how her heart all but missed its beat. To desire Henry's victory—if she might share it—was one thing; English armies trampling French soil, another. To whom could she turn? To her useless father? her imprisoned mother? or to sly Charles? She knew the moment's panic. She would run away—to Vincennes, to Tours...anywhere, anywhere.

  “We
are lost,” Guillemote said, weeping.

  “Lost? We haven't begun yet. Leave your tears, girl.” Her own words, her own smile steadied her.

  “Lost, lost,” Guillemote wailed. “These English! There's no telling with them; there's neither rhyme nor reason. Casting anchor at Touques. Who could expect them there? Ships—English ships—land at Calais, land at Harfleur. But Touques! It isn't right, it isn't fair, it's against the rules. No-one makes war like that.”

  “It seems they do. Maybe the English King doesn't care about rules; maybe he thinks war isn't a game.” She shrugged.

  Guillemote stared. She could never understand the lady Catherine. “No game for us,” she said at last. “Bonneval. The English have taken Bonneval.”

  “Nonsense!” But for all her smiling Catherine's hand went to her heart. “You've been listening to a tale.”

  “But naturally, Madam. The messengers have just brought it. It's all over St. Pol by now.”

  “Kitchen talk. Bonneval. It's untakeable.”

  “So we thought. But the English walked in . „ . because our garrison walked out. Frightened to death at the sound of the English King's name. But that isn't the whole of it, neither. This Henry, so they say Madam, has sent a letter saying unless the crown is given to him at once he will send our own King packing and my lord Dauphin with him; and then he will take it himself.”

  “Will he indeed?” Catherine laughed a little. And, Why not? Why not? My crowns...my two crowns. “That's a tale we've heard before. Where do you keep your wits, girl?”

  * * *

  It was hot even for August in the dark shadow of the woods. And quiet. You could not believe France to be at war. There might be no mailed feet trampling the land, no bitter smell of burnt fields and orchards. But all the same it was true. And worse. For what by God's mercy the English overlooked, Burgundian and Armagnac destroyed between them. The people were hungry, Guillemote said. Long before winter came they would be hungrier still...

  Catherine picked up her lute.