by Hilda Lewis
“Madam, wrap up well against the wind. You must ride with me.”
She rose without a word. It did not become her to ask whither they were taking her, or what this new gaoler might mean. But certainly he boded no good. She looked at his grim face and remembered he had never liked her. He had thought her out-of-place with her counselling of Kings; he had disliked her for her foreignness and detested her foreigners. Watching through the curtains of the litter his face of stone, she thought, The Tower. This time it is the Tower.
But again it was not the Tower.
The road was unfamiliar now; she began to smell the salt of the sea. Her heart began to hope. Were they taking her to Henry? Surely she could win her dearest son again. But it was not across the sea to Henry.
The great grey walls of Pevensey Castle frowned high above them as they rode over the drawbridge. No manor this, but a keep, a stronghold. A prison.
Shivering in the small chamber where the thin hangings lifted in the draught and the tiny fire could not warm her, courage dropped low and lower still. Now it did not help to remember she had been a King's daughter, a King's wife; her aching bones reminded her that she was a woman like any other woman—a woman who might rot in prison.
By the time Sir John Pelham came to bid her Goodnight desperation had made her bold.
“Sir,” and she was holding herself in to courtesy, “why have you brought me here?”
“My orders, Madam. Here you are safe!” His voice not his face gave him away; she could have sworn to the hatred in his voice.
“From whom?” She was blunt; it was not within her dignity to fence with him. “Who threatens my safety?”
“The people, Madam. Show your face in London and it is odds but they will tear you in pieces.”
“And what have I done,” she asked “to merit such violence-save, of course, the fault of having been born not English?” He gave her a cold, shrewd stare.
“Well?” she asked impatient.
He said, “I cannot name it. The words, even, are hateful to my tongue.”
“Yet I will have it,” she said, and set her will to command him.
“You have—” and he could not, it seemed, look at her without hatred, “sought the death of the King.”
She opened her mouth to speak, to deny the monstrous charge; her throat would not give the words passage, nor her lips frame them.
“With vile practices of witchcraft,” he said.
She could not even pretend to surprise. She had known. From the moment they had taken Randolf she had known.
“And how—” and now the words forced themselves through the stiff passage of her throat, “since I have not seen my dearest son—” her lips twisted about the words, made of them a bitter jest, “since he went into France?”
“Witches have familiars. The sea is no barrier, nor the air neither.”
“Witches? Familiars? You are mad,” she said. “What have I to do with them?”
“You should know. And all Christendom knows. Your devil's priest has confessed.”
“Take care how you insult God's priest,” she said. “And what has he confessed, since there is nothing, nothing at all he could confess?”
“Yet for all that he has confessed; and to the King himself. As to what he has confessed, you must know that, Madam, better than any.” And he turned about, bending his look of hatred upon her. “Let Madam think upon her good fortune. A lesser lady would have gone to the fire.”
So they had “tried” Randolf, made him “confess”. A man of God who feared for his body more than for his soul—poor wretch! But all the same, to the fire he would go!
She had the moment's pity for him, thought then of herself.
What Pelham said about the fire was true enough. No stake for her nor yet the block. But the secret poison, the pillow while she slept.
She said, and summoned the smile at last, “But not without trial. When do I come to my trial?”
“Never.” He turned upon his heel.
* * *
“Witchcraft is a deadly heresy,” Bishop Beaufort said softly.
Clarence turned his back upon his uncle. “Sir,” he said and he spoke to the King. “Harry, think! From boyhood she has been our mother, so good a mother...”
“So good, she would help me to my heavenly crown!”
“It is not true.” The King's face would have frightened a lesser man. “What will men say of you?” Clarence said.
“That I showed undue mercy allowing her to live.”
“Our father loved her—and good cause! His loathsome sickness; and she, so patient and so good; no witch could show such kindness. Our father's wife. Have you no respect for our father's name?”
“Let no man teach me my duties,” the King said, bitter with his conscience. “Witchcraft, witchcraft, everywhere. Scratch a witch and you uncover a heretic. They hate me, the heretics, because I will not endure any man to play false with God. To the fire they shall go, witches and heretics all. It is God's Will.”
“Witches, heretics, yes,” Clarence said, reasonable. His ardent spirit broke through. “But not our mother. It is a shameful thing.”
The King's face was frightening.
“Our mother is no witch,” Clarence said again, dogged.
“Is she not?” It was Beaufort, suave, fearing the quarrel. “The priest has told all. Madam Johanne's own confessor.”
“Under torment.” Clarence shrugged.
“This way or that,” Beaufort told him, “he has confessed.” “Can you doubt it?” The King broke in, loud above the small nagging voice of his conscience. “The bad blood of her father flows in her. Oh you were rightly named, you doubting Thomas!”
“God grant you are not too sorry for this,” Clarence said and went out.
“There goes a good fellow,” Beaufort said lightly, belittling, “but not subtle, not at all subtle.”
“You mean he knows a bad smell when he meets one and is not afraid to say so?”
“Come now, Harry!” And it was the tutor's voice, firm for all the blandness, “You were pressed for money; now you are no longer pressed. Besides,” he shrugged, “witchcraft or no—withholding aid in dire need, is not that compassing the death of the King?”
Henry said, moody, “My bishop would save my soul—and fill my pockets at the same time. Uncle, I could wish the thing undone. And why not? It is not too late, even now!”
“And how will the people take it that their Soldier of God smiles upon witchcraft in high places? And—” he added, for better measure, “a foreigner!”
“You are the devil, I think,” the King said.
“No devil but God's bishop.” He smiled his charming smile. “God's rich bishop. God must love me well!”
CHAPTER XIII
“Three years,” Henry said. “Three long years fighting. And never once within sight of winning France, Conqueror though they call me. With right and with justice I fought to win my own. Right and justice failed. Now, suddenly, a foolish boy's wickedness brings me my heart's desire.”
“The ways of God are strange,” Beaufort said, the churchman in him perfunctory; the statesman broke through. “All France is sick with shame at Burgundy's death; or must pretend to be. Yes, even those same priests and statesmen—mad and bad all of them—who bewildered the wretched boy with their counsels. Well, it has left Madam Isabeau free to play her hand...which happens to be your hand. She made her move without waste of time.”
“A strange woman,” the King said, “she knows no natural tie of blood.”
“Lust for power is stronger than any tie of blood,” sly Beaufort said, reminding the King of his own itch for his father's crown. “Her own flesh-and-blood the Dauphin may be; but there's no place for her if ever he comes to power...except one place. It's prison for her and she knows it. Why should she wait for that when she holds the cards? The shrewdest brain in France, Madam Isabeau—and no more to be trusted than a tiger.”
“You give me a good b
elle-dame,” Henry said, sour. Suddenly good-humour returned. “Now I am at the high peak of fortune. The Queen of France hot for the marriage and the little Burgundy running...”
“...and crying out for vengeance. There's another you can’t trust. He confuses his desire for justice with his hatred of the Dauphin. Well, you didn't overwhelm him with compliments when he came running with Isabeau's terms.”
“I told him outright I would not endure from him the blow-hot, blow-cold I endured from his father. Why should I, with the Dauphin waiting for my nod? I told him my terms once and for all—the lands ceded to my great-grandfather; every one of them down to the last length of a man's foot; and with them every town, castle and farm. Full sovereignty. No need to name them over, I said. It stands clear in the Treaty of Brétigny. And I must have the Lady Catherine to wife; and with her the Regency of France while her father lives and the crown when he dies.”
“A bitter pill; you were wise to add a little honey. The whole cost of the wedding to fall upon England; no dowry, even; and a douceur for Madam Isabeau in the shape of two thousand crowns a month. Let's hope that at home they'll be pleased with the bargain.”
“It's little enough to pay for a crown. But let Isabeau and Burgundy take heed. I am not to be fooled. One shuffle from either of them—and it's the Dauphin for me!”
“And if he shuffles, too?”
“Play one against the other; not in great things, not in matters of high policy; but in the smaller things, the personal things, the things that prick and fester. There are plenty and I don't forget much.”
“No. You know how to make the most of human failings. That head of yours...”
“Might have made me a bishop, a rich bishop—if I hadn't been born a King.”
* * *
“He's not very trusting this Henry,” Isabeau said. “We give way in everything, accept everything; and yet he doesn't trust us.”
“True!” Philip of Burgundy said scowling, lip out-thrust in ridiculous imitation of his father. Catherine wanted to laugh. She did not laugh. She was learning to sit still, to watch.
“I have treated the man well,” the young Burgundy said, pompous, “given him gifts, honoured him with my .friendship. On Christmas Day we feasted together.”
“And very merry,” Isabeau said drily, “so I heard. But by any reckoning that is all of four months ago.”
“Much can happen in four months,” King Charles said very suddenly; and there was the heart-broken note she knew only too well. Killing himself because he had declared his son unworthy of the crown!
It had not been easy to bring him to it; she had forced upon his poor wits the pressure of her iron strength. Now she patted her husband's arm. “It was well done,” she said, “and rightly done. Had you not done it, Paris would have risen, yes and all France, too. They would have murdered our son's friends—hunted them from their hiding-places, dragged them out to die shamefully in the streets. No one spared, not one; not even our son; not even Charles himself.”
He nodded, weary, wondering as always, how she managed to fish into the deep places of his poor mind, drag up the thought unspoken. He went on plucking at his poor thin beard...Wrong, all wrong. God chooses the King; not any man; not even Isabeau. And it was he who would suffer for it; suffer in his head, his poor buying head; for this he would go down to the dark place where all was cold, dark and cold; and in the darkness slimy creatures touched him, ran away, touched again...
“Come now,” Isabeau said comfortably, her eyes watchful, “we have done well with England, we have done very well. This wedding will cost us nothing, nothing at all. No dowry, even, think of that!” She turned to Catherine, “Mistress Pusscat, sitting there, eyes cast down as if this concerns you not at all...and drinking in every word, I have something for your private ear.”
Catherine rose, made her curtsey to the King; they went out together.
The Queen's chamber was over-hot and not over-clean. Isabeau did not mind such trifles, did not notice them, even. Now she seated herself, the fine gown sweeping the dust of the floor, and motioned the girl to a stool.
“The messengers are back,” Isabeau said softly, “my own private messengers. Never look at me like that, girl, Queens don't wear their hearts on their sleeve. I've said nothing yet to anyone; I had to think first.” The long jewelled hand went to her forehead. “It is always for me to think—there is no-one else.” She sighed a little. “They saw your King at Pontoise; and they took Paris on the way back. There was a full meeting in the Parlement Chamber, everyone crowding in to hear England's terms. Then Henry's promise was read aloud—France to be left free to follow her own customs if he succeeds to the throne...”
Isabeau paused, teasing. Catherine besought her with wide dark eyes.
“France is sick of bloodshed,” Isabeau said and chucked the girl under the chin. “When they were asked if they would accept England's terms, they rose to their feet; everyone rose. Yes, they shouted, Yes. This settles your brother, I fancy! That is all I think; or is there something more?” She was still teasing.
“There is something more,” Catherine said, very low. “The messengers...what did they say of...him?”
“Of...him? Of whom? Can you mean Henry? Well, the Chancellor could talk only of his handsome face; but I needn't repeat it—his looks you know; you've seen the man. But there's more to a man than a handsome face—and so you may find soon enough!” Isabeau gave her lewd chuckle.
Catherine spoke stiffly from a burning face. “I speak of his manner, Madam, the words he spoke. How did they find him?”
“De Morvilliers is not so easily taken by the eye as our good Chancellor; he says your King is proud and cold. So look out, my girl! He says kindness may move him to kindness—and there's your cue. But his anger is terrible. Consider that, consider it well. Remember our cousin Johanne.”
“She is not the first queen to lie in prison,” Catherine said thoughtless.
“A princess will follow her if you take that tone with me!” Isabeau said and waited for the apology. “To return to this Henry of yours. He doesn't talk much, de Morvilliers says; and when his mind's made up nothing on earth can change it; least of all a woman.”
“A man should be a man,” Catherine said.
“Take care he is not too much of a man for you. They say the discipline in the English army is frightening. No women. Imagine it! Admirable, of course. But it comes hard on men; and it may come hard on you, too.”
The scarlet was sudden again in Catherine's cheeks.
“Come, girl, don't play the prude! If you want your crown, marry the man and get yourself with child as soon as may be. You hear me?”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Yes Madam , no Madam.” Isabeau broke out as once before. “What are you? Milk-and-water, or flesh and blood? Or do you think the miracle of the Virgin will be worked again for you?”
Catherine did not answer. She hated her mother's banter because it struck the answering note within herself—a shameful excitement. She did not want it so. She knew very well what marriage was. She loved the man, she would meet her own experiences; she could not endure them to be smeared beforehand. She looked with hard young eyes upon her mother's blown-upon beauty; and, looking, remembered the dozen of children born to that fearful man her father; remembered that if Isabeau had taken light loves to fill the empty years, they had been empty; remembered, too, how she, with all her children, had wept—so they said—and would not be comforted for Orléans' still-born child.
* * *
May once more. In the gardens at Troyes hawthorn red and white shook summer perfume on the air. Every day the messengers rode in with the news...Henry of England had reached St. Denys; he had prayed at St. Denys...
Isabeau took in her breath, her tired thoughts flew backwards.
...St. Denys. And the mad masques; and the madder love-making in the abbey stalls; and the torchlight making the horned head-dresses dance upon the floor as though hell were let loose
, a lovely hell, lovelier than any heaven, women in short doublets, buttocks rounded beneath long fine hose; and the men trailing silken skirts; exquisite, but full men for all that. Lovely, lovely days when she was young...
Her blood ached for it still.
* * *
The King of England had marched under the walls of Paris; the citizens had swarmed upon their walls to watch him pass. And he had been worth watching! So handsome, they said; smiling and proud, with his tilting-helm borne before him carrying the fox brush of his device. The people had cried themselves hoarse in welcome. In spite of the famine in the city they had sent out four great carts loaded with fine wines.
“A fox,” King Charles said, picking at his nails, his poor mind giving up half-way through the tale. “It is well understood. The man himself is a fox. Why does he come here?” he pondered, eyes dull upon the bitten nails. He reared himself suddenly. “To thieve, to kill, to suck our blood. Do not give our daughter to a fox...no...no...no.”
They led him away weeping.
* * *
Henry had left Provins. At Brie, the Dauphinists had blocked his way. He had taken the castle and hanged some of the defenders.
“A gentle bridegroom,” said Michelle come from Arras for the wedding.
Michelle was green with envy, Catherine was sure; and she looked much older than the two years between them. No mistaking the Valois nose now. Michelle wouldn't have to be an old woman to be an ugly one. She was suddenly sorry for Michelle. The good Philip neglected her. No wonder, perhaps, when he could take his pick of beauties! But he ought to have given her a child; he owed her that. He made her look a fool. But then Michelle was a fool. Sharp enough with everyone else, she was too humble with that husband of hers!
* * *
Troyes was hung with banners, strewn with flowers.
They stood upon the castle walls to see Henry ride into the city. The light wind caught Isabeau's veil, caught Michelle's veil, sent them streaming backwards. Catherine felt it stirring in her own unbound hair.
She heard the cries of welcome as the first party rode in, the knights and the men-at-arms; and after them the great lords of England and of France, princes of church and state.