by Anne O'Brien
‘Katherine, I suppose, the youngest girl.’
‘Yes.’ Watching me, Thomas gave a grunt of a laugh. ‘You’ll appreciate this, Madam. The King has promised that she will have a dower, paid from the English Exchequer, of forty thousand crowns a year. He wants her, and he wants the French Crown. I doubt her father will be able to refuse such a windfall, even if it means he disinherits his own son.’
‘I appreciate nothing about this ignominious position it has put me in.’
So much offered to buy this Valois girl. And with her came the promise of the Crown of France. It filled me with dread. My dower could never fill the purse that the King had offered for the French princess, thus making my future even more certain. I would never be released. I would never be restored to what was due to me. My son-by-marriage might even now take action to ensure that my dower always remained under his authority, exercising his right to bring me a trial.
I almost stretched to take up my cup, to drink, then hid the sad evidence of my hands, swollen-sore, beneath the luxuriant fur of my over-sleeves. I wanted no pity from Baron de Camoys. But then, perversely, defiantly, as if to prove that I did not care what my visitor thought, I retrieved the cup with something of a flourish, although I did not drink from it.
‘At least I know where my money is to be spent,’ I said.
‘It’s not confirmed yet, but it will be. Hal is determined on the marriage.’
‘The King always was single-minded. Is that all you have to tell me? I fear it has been a long journey for you to make, no doubt out of your way, for so little.’
No, I was not courteous. I was angry, and afraid, and despairing.
Refusing to rise to my impolite bait, Thomas leaned back, his eyes holding a soft malice. ‘I like your terminology, by the way.’
I raised my brows.
‘Our King is no longer Hal in your thinking.’
‘He is not. He deserves no name but that of his authority over me.’ I would not acknowledge Thomas’s apparent amusement at so spiteful a retribution, but the only one I could apply to my absent step-son.
I stood abruptly.
‘Will you stay to dine with me?’
‘I don’t think I will, Madam.’
Which took me aback. ‘Then you had better go,’ I said.
But he did not stir. ‘Do you not even wish to know why I will not? It was a very long journey for me to come here.’
I raised my chin. ‘Then tell me. If you wish.’
Upon which he stood, took the neglected cup from me, placed it on the table beside the flagon and took my hands in his, saluting them with all the courtesy I had lacked.
‘You cannot be angry all the time.’
‘Oh, but I can!’
He squeezed my fingers so that I had to hide a hiss of pain. ‘It’s like conversing with a hedgehog.’
I inhaled sharply. ‘I don’t see…’
He interrupted, face and voice at one in gravity. ‘You will drive away any visitor who might choose to come here. You will be even more lonely than you are now.’
‘I am not lonely.’ I prayed that he would not read the lie in my face. ‘I am angry…’
‘I know. But think. Your anger must be governed. Since when did you allow raw emotion to best your judgement? Your imprisonment at the King’s pleasure could last for months. Years. Can you be angry for ever?’And as I opened my lips to say yes, he placed a finger there. ‘I am here to give advice. Good advice. It will ruin your health and your beauty.’ He rubbed lightly at the line that had obviously become evident on my forehead. ‘And what good will it do? It will not change Hal’s mind or the outcome. You have to be stalwart and courageous. You have to put all this aside and determine to live your life as lightly as you might, in a place that was once yours and that even now allows you some comfort.’ He paused, as if waiting for me to object, but I was thinking hard. ‘Laugh with me, Joanna. Smile. Welcome those who will come to see you and they will come more often. I will come more often. I tell you this as a friend who has always worked for your good. Henry—your Henry—would say the same.’
‘Would he?’
‘Think how he suffered. Yet he fought and mastered the pain until the bitter end. You are not near the bitter end. Fight, Madam. Live as the Queen you are, with all the regal dignity and beauty you have enjoyed all your life. Don’t let this destroy you.’ Gently now, Thomas released my hands and I sank back into my chair. ‘Have I said too much?’
‘I think you have. Or perhaps you have said what was needed.’
I studied my hands, willing them to relax in my lap, because clenching them was too painful, while, patiently, Thomas de Camoys waited for me. He had not seemed to notice their disfigurement, or was too compassionate to draw attention. Finally I looked up. To see such incomparable kindness in his eyes.
‘I am ashamed,’ I said.
‘Understandable.’
‘But unforgiveable. And you such a true friend.’
‘True friends exist to give advice and support.’
‘I am so sorry, Thomas.’
Retrieving my cup, he placed it back in my hand. ‘Drink this. You are not well, are you?’
‘I have been better.’ I drank, and under his persistent questioning, because he would not let me be without his discovering, I told him a little, although not all. I would never tell any man of all my sufferings, for it was as if the tumult of my mind had transposed itself to my body, invading wrist and ankle and knuckle with searing pain and stiffened movements. As I told him, I felt my anger draining, in the relief at being able to acknowledge my growing sense of fragility.
‘What right have I to complain?’ I asked finally. ‘If Henry could tolerate the agony inflicted on him, how can I not withstand a complaint that is more dependent on the incessant rain than anything else? I expect I have been impossible to live with,’ I finished on a sigh.
‘Which is the reason why your women look strained. As if they had been living with a feral cat. But now you are restored to your usual good sense.’
‘I will try.’ As I smiled for the first time for days, I found myself asking:‘And you will come again, if I am warm and welcoming?’
‘Yes.’
‘And will you dine with me now?’
‘That’s why I’m here.’
Relief, strong and sure, raced through me to remove my perennial headache. This was a friendship I had almost destroyed through my own wilfulness. I had been wrong. How could I have been so selfish not to see the consequences of my actions? I had deserved to be brought to account. My lessons with Henry on the vicious consequences of pride had not wholly been learnt. I stood again and stretched out a hand.
‘We can offer you fish,’ I said at an attempt at light-heartedness, so difficult after endless days of outrage.
‘Salt fish?’Thomas chuckled.
‘We can do better than that.’
We walked into the little chamber where a table had been laid for me with a white cloth. And sat, as one of my pages came with ewer and basin, pouring the fragrant water so that Thomas might cleanse his hands.
‘Should I comment on this ostentation?’he asked, applying the napkin.
‘If you wish to do so.’
But I was pleased that he had noticed. I was female enough to hope that he would enjoy these quiet moments after the turbulence. And when my page returned with a magnificent silver-gilt ewer to pour out cups of good Rhenish I felt a touch of mischief in my mind, newly born as if emerging from a grey sea-mist.
‘I can offer you Gascon or Rochelle,’ I offered innocently.
‘A well-stocked cellar? I had no idea. I would have come earlier.’ He drank. ‘No, indeed. I am content with this. I see more than a touch of luxury.’ He lifted a table knife of silver gilt, reaching to tap it against the carved stem of a candlestick of silver, skilfully engraved.
And I looked round the chamber, seeing it from Thomas’s eyes. It had a comfort. And a wealth. My newly purchased popinjay sat
in its decorative cage.
‘For a prison, it has a touch of civilisation. And you too are looking very impressive, Madam.’ He tilted his chin as he surveyed my gown of heavy satin, the sleeves and neck rich with grey squirrel fur. A girdle and rosary of gold. ‘Fine feathers indeed.’ And then as if it had struck him for the first time his eyes darkened with some emotion:‘You have decided to return to mourning.’ He paused, knowing as well as I that Henry had been dead for almost seven years. ‘I’m sorry if you must still mourn his passing so strongly.’
Touched beyond words, I closed my hand as well as I could over his, regretful that he had misread my decision. Thomas must think that I would mourn Henry for ever, allowing no lightness into my soul or my spirit, for I was dressed from head to toe in solemn and funereal black. Yes, I would always mourn him, but not like this.
‘This is not for Henry,’ I explained. ‘I lost Henry, wept for that loss and I mourned him. I always will in my heart.’ I lifted the costly material of my sleeve. ‘This outward sign is for me, for my imprisonment. I have paid my respects to the dead. This is in mourning for myself, who cannot obtain justice. I will clothe myself in deepest black until the day I die. Or am released.’
‘You still look magnificent. You always did like beautiful things.’
‘And expensive ones. As parliament complained on more than one occasion.’ A little ripple of anger returned in spite of my best intentions. ‘Since the King sees fit to salve his conscience by giving me an allowance, I see no reason why I should not spend it to the hilt. It is a grain of wheat compared with the full harvest that he has filched from me. There! I’ve shocked you again. Spending on gowns and candlesticks, while England is at war and in dire need of every coin you can raise.’
‘No. I am not shocked.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Or perhaps a little. But as you say, the allowance is a sop to his conscience.’
‘The King has no conscience! I have been thinking, Thomas,’the anger abating under his honesty, to be followed by cool logic. ‘What if I bring my own case to Court? What if I petition the Council to bring the evidence against me, and prove that I am worthy of the accusation? Since there is no evidence against me, surely they will acknowledge it and be forced to release me…’
‘No. You will not.’
‘Why not? Is it not worth the risk?’
‘No. This is the pain speaking. Let it lie, Madam. If you did indeed force the Council to put you on trial, you might, to your own disadvantage, discover the lack of evidence against you to be an irrelevance against the royal will. If you lose, if you are simply declared guilty, evidence or not, your situation could be dire. Even if they would not condemn you to death by burning, your imprisonment might become one of true duress and for the term of your life. Promise me that you will not.’
‘I can’t promise.’
Dropping my knife on the table, I covered my face with my hands, not to hide tears, which I would not shed, but to cover my fears.
‘You must not do it, Joanna!’
He took my hand and wrapped my fingers around my cup. ‘Drink.’ And when I resisted:‘Drink, for God’s sake, woman. You’ve less colour than a day-old cheese. You must promise me that you will not take issue with the Council.’
I frowned down into the cup. ‘If I were guilty of necromancy, would I not be able to see my future in my looking glass? Or in a pool sprinkled with witches’ herbs? But, in the name of the Virgin, I cannot.’ And then in dismay, because of the personal hurt it had engendered:‘I am afraid, Thomas. I am afraid that the King will instruct the Council to complete the case against me. It is like a large bird hovering over me, its wings a constant shadow. At least if I petitioned for justice, it would be on my own terms.’
‘Sadly, you have no terms at all, Madam.’
*
Then Thomas was making preparations to leave, as he must, so that I walked with him down to the courtyard, as I was allowed, where his horses and escort awaited him.
‘I wish I could leave with you,’ I said, without thinking.
He slid a glance. ‘Shall I carry you off, in the tried and trusted manner of all knights errant, across my saddle bow?’
‘I’m past the age of such exertions.’
‘I may be as well.’ He smiled as he kissed my fingers in farewell. I would not ask when he would return. But then, as he turned away to grasp his bridle and mount, I asked, because I could no longer hold my thoughts in check:
‘Will it always be like this, Thomas? Trapped like a moth in a soft cloth? Leave-takings and loneliness? I will take your advice. I will not allow myself to sink into the morass of despondency, but in truth sometimes I can barely tolerate it. Books and music and the stitching of endless tapestries are all very well, but it is no life for a woman who has ruled a country.’
The bridle was tossed to his tactful squire who withdrew to a little distance. ‘How can I offer you comfort? It will be like this. We both know it will.’
‘Of course. I have to bear in good heart what cannot be changed.’ I conjured a smile of sorts. ‘I promise I’ll not spoil your future visits by useless complaints and ill-mannered bleating.’
‘You could never spoil my visits to you.’
‘I tried hard enough.’
‘And failed.’ Now he mounted, but remained, looking down at me, his expression beyond my reading. ‘Because I ride out through your gates does not mean that I no longer think of you, Joanna. Remember that.’
‘And because you ride out does not mean that I forget you, Thomas.’
How easily we had slid into the intimate use of our names, almost without noticing it. Although perhaps we had.
‘Look for me within the month.’
‘If the raising of troops doesn’t keep you from my door for the next twelvemonth,’ but I said it with a genuine smile.
‘And when I return we will not talk of salt fish.’
‘Make good use of my money!’ My final admonition.
He saluted and rode out.
And I? I buried my anger. By sheer force of will I determined to view my life with as much satisfaction as I could muster. For there really was no alternative unless I would wallow in misery and become a burden to myself and my twittering English household.
Chapter 19
I could not mistake the march of footsteps, from where I was taking the air with my women in the garden. Or the owner of the two well-laden sumpter horses, a wagon, a travelling litter and a tidy escort occupying the inner courtyard.
‘I see you are journeying, Lord Thomas.’ I was formal as the occasion demanded in so public a place. My cheeks were pink in the mild air. And then I stopped.
For out of the litter stepped a woman I knew.
‘My lady, I am returned.’
I inhaled against the ridiculous surge of emotion, a very female emotion that almost drove me to my knees. When I could find no words, my visitor could.
‘I have come to stay. God help me—it was a terrible journey from London, the roads a mess of mud with puddles deep enough to submerge us all. But I am here at last.’
‘How? How were you able to come to me?’
It was all I could manage, but I was holding out my hands in welcome. Nor did I flinch when she took them.
‘Lord Thomas said you needed me to play chess with you.’
‘Among so many other things. Oh, I have missed you.’
It was Marie. Marie de Parency who I thought must have returned to Brittany, yet here she was, beaming with pleasure, her dark hair tucked into a coif, as solid and practical as I recalled. I did not ask how it had been arranged. All I knew was that Thomas had been instrumental in its organisation. My gratitude to him all but drowned me.
‘I have no chessboard,’ I admitted.
‘How fortunate that I have brought one, my lady,’ and Marie beckoned to one of my pages who staggered under the weight of a travelling coffer from the wagon. ‘And much else besides,’ she added as another figure, bent with years, eyes wet w
ith emotion, was helped from the litter by one of Thomas’s minions.
I took another ragged breath.
‘Mistress Alicia. You have come home to me.’
‘And about time too.’ My ageing nurse, fragile but indomitable, was already looking round the courtyard, inspecting everything with a caustic gleam. ‘There are things that need putting right here.’ Removing an ancient travelling cloak, she was already chivvying my waiting women to set their veils, disturbed by the sharp April winds, to rights.
‘All I know, my lady, is that you are innocent,’Marie stated, ‘and it is not justice that you should remain here.’
While Mistress Alicia added: ‘I know what went on in your household, my lady, from cellar to solar, and it was not witchcraft.’
‘Any woman can be considered a witch in her own kitchen,’ I observed.
‘I don’t recall you spending any time in a kitchen, my lady. And so I’ll tell our fine King when he deigns to visit. Did I not plaster his face with tincture of Yarrow and dose him with Chamomile, the poor lad? No megrims of witchcraft then, was there?’
Perhaps not. I did not reply that a woman did not need to be conversant with the workings of a kitchen to be well acquainted with witches’ herbs and their uses. That was not a subject to be discussed, now or at any future time.
What a pleasure it was to talk to these women I had known all my life, my heart even lighter after an investigation, there in the courtyard, of the contents of the coffer for, as well as the promised chessmen, I was reunited with my pen-case, my inkhorn, my much mourned tapestry.
I must thank Thomas, for the restoration of these much desired possessions was undoubtedly at his generous hand. And there he was, smiling at me, watching from beside the wagon. I made my way towards him, knowing that I was aglow with gratitude.
‘Thank you. Thank you. And for your visit too.’
‘I am not visiting, Madam.’ Lord Thomas sketched a bow, face suddenly as expressionless as a knightly effigy on a gravestone, lifted my fingers to his lips in a brisk greeting.