Crown in Candlelight

by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

  ‘I want you to stay in France for as long as possible. Keep a close eye on the military and naval arsenal in le clos des gallées here … vital. Control the garrisons. Stay until Richard of York is experienced enough to take command … relations between English and French here must remain solid … close surveillance, Humphrey … if we are to salvage anything from this wretched … shambles. Continue to woo Charles and Philip. If Paris falls …’ He shut his eyes and breathed noisily.

  ‘John!’ Humphrey held his brother’s hand tightly. He heard a feminine echo: ‘John?’ and drew away to look into the face of the new wife, Jacquetta. Even in his grief her beauty stung him. Red-gold hair, dark blue eyes, a perfect body. And near her Sir Richard Woodville, with his archangel’s face and his arm supporting the Duchess. Neither were weeping.

  ‘Go away, lady,’ he said rudely. For a moment he recalled what Eleanor had said—sisters in skill! and hated all women, all witches, seeing no division between the two. Beautiful women were the Devil’s handiwork, ever since Eve … Bedford said, his eyes still closed: ‘Come near.’

  ‘I am near.’

  ‘Look to the King, Humphrey. Support him with the Council.’

  ‘I am his loyal servant.’ For a moment he believed himself implicitly. ‘I’ll guard and guide him like a father.’

  Bedford, weakening, murmured: ‘And my lord … promise … go gently with the Queen-Dowager, with Katherine. Let her live out her life in peace. She means no harm. I know that you and she have had your skirmishes. But she was Harry’s joy and pride.’

  Humphrey bowed his head, silent. He thought: my own promise came first, to myself, to see them ruined and damned, she and Tydier. Even for the brotherly love that tears me this minute, I cannot, I will not renege on this. I will obey in the spirit if not the letter. I will do Bedford’s will in France. I will protect our interests. I will give them a little grace. A savage smile broke through his sorrow. It will be yet another exercise in attrition. This sojourn in Rouen will give me time to prepare the case against them.

  Bedford was dying. He scrawled his signature on the will. Wax smoked and was crushed beneath the seal. His fingers opened, the quill rolled free. He whispered: ‘In manus tuas, Domine,’ and very soon the vibrations of death sang in his throat. The priests moved forward, chanting softly. Humphrey stepped back. He moved against the wall. Through tears he saw the widow, Jacquetta, turning to lean in graceful grief against Sir Richard Woodville. They were on the edge of a lamenting knot of clergy and knights but Humphrey saw, for a clear instant, Sir Richard’s hand slide round to caress, even in death’s awesome eye, the woman’s curving breast.

  And renewed fury drove out sorrow, as two other lovers filled his mind. I will have them. They deem themselves gods, outside the law, outside the Church, outside morality: I will give them a little more time, but that is all.

  There was now a broad white streak in Hywelis’s hair. Like the streak on Madog’s head and withers, the mark of the eagle, showing the purity of his line. Her body was emaciated, not so much by her anchorite’s meagre diet as from the embattled nights, the tearing strife with the black one.

  It was over twenty years since the Lord had died. Lately Megan and the bard had joined him. Glyndyfrdwy was now almost completely a shell. The wind swept howling through its broken roof. Its battlements had succumbed to frost and gales, and parts had crashed into the courtyard. And here she stayed, seeing no one, living off the insubstantial fruits of the valley, sleeping beside her foxes on the floor. Tending the fire. In constant communion with the smoke.

  The vapours whirled about her, densely grey. The Lord appeared almost at once, handsome and smiling, with Davy Gam looking over his shoulder. Faintly etched in the topmost billows was the face of Megan, all her bitterness gone, and Gruffydd Llwyd. Hywelis would never have known the beardless youth that death had made of him. Another face filtered into the pearling, acrid cloud—Iolo Goch. Out of the ancient past he blessed her silently. Hywelis began to weep.

  ‘Father,’ she said brokenly. ‘I cannot continue. I shall die. The black one becomes too strong.’

  Behind her, within the pentacle drawn on the floor, the little vixen whimpered. Madog’s bride. Panting. Usually the vixens dropped their cubs with ease. This one was having a great struggle. Her sides heaved. She whined. Hywelis moved from the smoke and looked into the rush basket within the pentacle. She spoke to the vixen in its own tongue. The vixen raised tortured eyes. Panting. Crying. Hywelis went back to kneel beside the smoke. Today the barrier outside the spheres was fragile. The Lord’s voice was very strong.

  ‘Be still, girl,’ he said. ‘We are so pleased with you.’

  Last night the black one had almost triumphed, flinging itself over Hywelis as she slept unwarily. It was a writhing suffocating mass of fanged and taloned slime, risen from blackest Hell. Hywelis had had to retreat, only just in time, coiling herself within the golden torque of Maelor. She could not stay there long; its heat and brilliance killed, as surely as the black one’s power. The black one had spoken for the first time, in its voice unctuous from the Pit.

  ‘Cease. Cease fighting. I claim my right.’

  Behind her she heard the vixen moan. The Lord’s voice mingled with the sound of travail.

  ‘It is accomplished,’ he said. ‘Edmund is the one. Wales will rule England. We love you, Hywelis.’

  ‘Duw a’n bendithio,’ said Davy Gam and Iolo Goch together. ‘God bless us.’ Megan and the bard echoed them.

  ‘My daughter. My good girl,’ said Owain Glyn Dwr. ‘You may join us now. Find peace. Watch the glory with us.’

  ‘When is the glory to be?’

  ‘In fifty years.’ The smoke itself had a rapturous voice, sibilant and pearly. ‘In fifty years. The greatness. Wales will rule England.’

  The vixen gave a terrible groan. The cub’s head appeared, blind and bloody. Such a tiny cub, marked with the blaze of Madog.

  ‘No!’ Hywelis cried. ‘I want to live! You promised. He will come to me again.’

  ‘Live then, girl,’ they said. ‘It is accomplished. You may cease fighting. The seed is sown. The dynasty is founded. Wales will rule England. Edmund is the one. We will protect him now.’

  The vixen was panting, her eyes closed. She was expendable. The tiny cub was also expendable, but Hywelis let him live.

  The smoke was fading. There was one more question. The Lord’s face shimmered, young, triumphant, foreseeing the greatness.

  ‘When? Father, father! When will he come to me?’

  ‘Soon. Quite soon. Prepare for him to hate you. Prepare for him to hate the world.’

  Winter had gone, and spring, and summer too; a year during which delicate negotiations were initiated in France, only to crumble inconclusively. France and Burgundy promulgated the Treaty of Arras. Charles yielded to Philip many of the coveted royal demesnes, giving visible assurance of contrition for the death of Jean sans Peur. And both parties ranged themselves side by side in the event of either being attacked by the English. In Rouen and Calais, Suffolk, Gloucester and York, with some of Beaufort’s forces, held on doggedly in the lost hope of establishing the young King as ruler of France. And Paris, hub of diplomacy and destiny, declared its allegiance to Charles the Seventh and his descendants. Almost exactly one year after Bedford’s death, a large proportion of the troops and their commanders prepared for home. The glory of Agincourt had become a faded vision, a tawdry myth. It was over. And at Hertford, within the ambience of stubborn affectionate loyalty and passionate love, autumn lost face to winter.

  Fog filled the day. The trees were almost bare. In the filmed courtyard a fine bay horse chumbled and tossed its silver bit, flicking little excitements of foam over the bridle. Huw stood calming the horse. Huw was dressed for the road, his wild little Welsh face set in impatience. Another horse waited, laden with saddle-bags. Huw’s pony wandered at will, tearing the last leaves from a rosebush. Owen opened an upper casement and shouted at Huw. He looked up and g
rinned.

  ‘The boy’s a fool,’ he said. ‘I wish I were taking Caradoc with me instead.’

  ‘Huw adores you,’ said Katherine. ‘He would give you his life. And Caradoc has gone to Carmarthen. To get married, I understand.’

  She stood in her shift, her arms clasped about her against the chill. Owen was in his fine embroidered shirt and hose. Guillemot, humming her silly ditty, and seeming in a trance, wandered in and out of the chamber with armfuls of clothing.

  ‘Marriage,’ said Owen, looking hard at Katherine, ‘is an honourable estate, and much to be desired.’ To her amazement he left it there, instead of badgering and pressing her until she lost her temper and quoted her promise to Bedford. He’s up to some mischief, she thought.

  He was. Hence the waiting horses. Bedford is dead, he thought. There are no promises for her to keep. He had already found it useless to approach her own chaplain (a doddering old man who seemed scarcely to know what day it was), saying: Father, will you marry us? No hope or help there; the old man was not so witless. I take orders only from the Queen-Dowager, my son. The Queen Dowager had said nothing. But there were other priests. Poor priests who would be only too glad to line their purses for his heart’s desire … He was going to find such a one.

  Katherine said, shivering: ‘I must make ready. How soon the opening of Parliament comes around. I wish I weren’t going. But Henry would be so disappointed.’

  Owen closed the door. Guillemot had gone on some foray and had been deflected, for she now appeared in the courtyard below. Huw tried to kiss her. She screamed and ran behind the horses.

  ‘Don’t go then, cariad,’ Owen said. ‘Stay here and wait for me. I shan’t be away for long.’

  ‘I must,’ she said.

  ‘You’re not afraid?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to fear, surely, at Westminster?’

  ‘I’ve not been afraid all this year. Gloucester’s in France. But I wish you were coming with me.’ She looked down at herself. ‘Does it show? If it shows, I shall stay behind.’

  Never again, he thought. Not since the last time, when I heard the dreadful insults levelled against us both and could do nothing. He put his arms about her. He stroked her swollen belly. Not so much a swelling as a graceful curve. It was hard to believe she was in her seventh month.

  ‘It never shows very much,’ he said. ‘And I have a new gown for you. It will conceal the world. Wait till you see it. The latest fashion. Monstrous.’

  ‘The last time, Bedford knew I was with child,’ she said. ‘It was a good guess on his part, I imagine.’

  ‘Try the dress, then,’ he said. He went to the dower-chest and took out a gown. ‘I had it made up at Taylor’s in Chepe. The new style, the houpelande. From Burgundy.’

  And Bedford’s dead, he thought again. God rest him. When we meet again, dearest dream, I shall have a surprise for you. I will have a willing priest with me, and if force will be needed to have you to the altar, then force shall rule. Even if I have to knock you senseless and bring you round to speak the vows. He helped her into the dress. It was low-necked, tight-girdled beneath her breasts, with an enormous padded stomacher thrown forward in impudent pride. Long dagged sleeves trailed almost to the ground.

  ‘This is the new fashion?’ she said in amazement.

  ‘Everyone wears it. Taylor told me. It’s not pretty to my mind, but perfect for the purpose.’

  She studied her reflection. She said, for the fourth time that day: ‘Why are you going to Southampton? Who is in Southampton?’

  Friends, he answered. He thought: the monk who tended my wound may still be there, and John Page. They will know of a priest to do my bidding.

  ‘Oh, it feels tight!’ she said, and wriggled out of the gown. She said: ‘Have you enough money?’ and became very intent on choosing stockings from a pile on the bed.

  ‘Thank you, yes.’ A little constraint grew between them. Already her gift of the fine bay horse had hurt and delighted him. She saved the moment quickly.

  ‘I know. You have a woman in Southampton! Ha! She’s welcome to you. At last I shall have some peace.’

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘The secret’s out. I’m tired of you, cariad. You are so fat!’

  ‘Who made me fat?’ she cried. He dropped to his knees, and before she could protest, he whipped up her shift and began kissing her belly. I did, he said. I did, my little girl. This is where my new son lies. The kisses moved downwards. And this, the soft gateway of his kingdom … A convulsion moved in her, as if a tiny planet had shifted on its axis. She put her hands in his hair. She whispered: ‘Ah … mon amour. Do you remember when we made this child? We had a lot of wine. Your kinsmen called on us. You sang for me. You made me drunk …’

  He rose from his knees. He began to kiss her throat and breast. He said, ‘Everyone was drunk. Howell ap Llewellyn misplaced his harp. A most wonderful evening. A more wonderful night …’

  She slipped her hands under his shirt. She began to caress him as wantonly and skilfully as he had once caressed her. He tried to take her hands. Her long lips were smiling wickedly.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, cariad. There’s danger in it. I want this child. What will we call him?’

  ‘Owen,’ she said. ‘My little Owen.’

  He was weakening. He took her shift off, and held her naked body hard against him. She kissed his eyes, his neck, his mouth. He could feel their hearts racing, exactly in time.

  ‘Bolt the door,’ she whispered. ‘Guillemot …’

  ‘We shall be late,’ he whispered. He did as she said.

  He tried to be careful. She was very reckless today, she swung him into rapture. He felt that part of his soul had flowed into her. Sometimes it made him want to weep. This was one of those times.

  ‘That was very foolish,’ he said softly. ‘Forgive me, my love.’

  Her closed eyelids were moist. She lay smiling. There was a delicate map of blue veins on her breasts. He touched where the child lay. He had felt it move, petulantly. She was so beautiful. Still the dream, the unfathomable, unbelievable, beloved dream. Oh, Cathryn, my dearest dream.

  ‘Don’t go to Westminster,’ he said. She sat up, and kissed him.

  ‘I feel well,’ she said. ‘I feel wonderful.’

  Her skin felt cold. ‘Let me dress you,’ he said. ‘I love to dress you. The times I’ve dressed you, and undressed you. My little girl.’

  She sat while he drew the fine woollen stockings on her legs and bound a garter about each thigh. What pretty garters, Madame, he said—who bought them for you, a lover? Yes, a lover, she said. From Hadham Market. He kissed the flesh above each garter. The strange little convulsion moved deep inside her again. I’ve never felt like this, she thought. As if a universe were whirling about within me. Lie still, little Owen. We are for Westminster. She watched the deft strong musician’s hands, felt the corns left by the harp on each fingertip a little rough on her skin. He lifted kirtle and petticoat over her head and drew them down. Then the dress, which seemed less tight now. It was still a monstrosity. It made her look as fat as Bet, at the tavern …

  ‘We never found it,’ she said.

  ‘What, my love?’

  ‘The tavern, at Staines.’

  ‘I think you set us on the wrong road,’ he said.

  She had wanted him to see the tavern at Staines, where the baby Henry had been so happy. She wanted him to see Bet. She had wanted, belatedly, to reward Bet herself. But the tavern was no more. They had looked for it for a day; there was no trace of it. It had disappeared, like a mythical halt on some faery wayside. Only the memory remained, an everlasting warmth.

  ‘We’ll try and find it again,’ he said.

  She sat before the mirror: He combed her hair, expertly, with no tugging or tweaking. His brilliant eyes were veiled over his task, the shirt was open at his strong throat. She watched him, sick with love. The pleasurable convulsion moved within her again, almost a pain. When every hair was free as silk, he made the two long
braids, anchoring them about her head with butterfly pins. He placed her great wired headdress with its pinnacles of starched linen on her hair. He looked up and winked at her in the mirror. He bent and kissed between her neck and shoulder.

  ‘Dame Alphonse used to tell me not to look in the mirror. She said I’d see the Devil. She didn’t know I was worried because I was so ugly.’

  He didn’t laugh. He said simply: ‘You’re lovely, Cathryn. The loveliest woman I ever saw in my life.’ He found it suddenly difficult to speak. He said: ‘I must get dressed. We’ll both be late.’

  She left him. She went smiling, and glowing, below to the courtyard, stopping on the way at a small chamber where she unlocked the coffer of her Privy Purse. Huw had given up chasing Guillemot, who had gone inside to find her duties done. Huw knelt respectfully as Katherine approached, his eyes popping at sight of the new gown. Masking the boy and herself from the window, she gave him a leather bag. Owen would be furious. Let him be.

  ‘There is two hundred livres sterling here, Huw,’ she said. ‘For unforeseen contingencies during whatever folly you two are about. Guard it for your master.’

  ‘For my lord,’ he said, his small dark face violently serious.

  ‘For mine,’ she said, turning away.

  Her carriage was ready to take her to the Parliament. Winter was on its way. The lovely winter nights by the fire, with the lute and the loving, and the new baby. She breathed deeply. Even the fog tasted sweet, promising. The servants who were to accompany her were standing ready. Guillemot came running out, red-faced. Then Owen, in his tawny velvet cloak and cap. He drew Katherine aside. The carriage swung from side to side as the horses shifted their feet.

  ‘Farewell then, fy merch fach,’ he said. ‘Farewell, my little girl. My humblest duty to the King’s Grace.’

  ‘Can’t we ride a little way together?’

  ‘Better not. I must ride fast. Too fast for your comfort. It will not be long …’ He frowned, he looked closely at her. ‘You’re not troubled? There’s nothing to fear. The gown is a sure shield.’