by Mary Lide
Such belligerence could only have one result, and so Richard knew. Philippa felt herself pushed aside as the sergeant leapt forward, his sword raised, his mouth opening on a snarl. Before he could complete the thrust, his weapon went clattering across the icy road, jarring his arm to the bone. And Richard stood over him sword to throat.
‘Now,’ Lord Montacune said, ‘for the last time. Do as I say. As king’s envoy here I have the ordering of you.’ His knuckles were bleeding from the force of his blow, but he grasped Philippa more tightly, and prepared to leave, expecting her to follow him. The sergeant was reeling on his feet. When he began to shake sense back into his head, he would recognize Richard’s style; he had seen its like before, even if he did not recall where. When he did, he would remember also the man who had used it on him in the square near Tower Bridge; he would remember what had happened afterwards, at Westminster. ‘Oh God,’ Philippa prayed. ‘Stop Richard before he gives himself away.’
‘Who are you?’ She screamed at Richard, not caring who heard; better if everyone did hear and saw her rejection of him. ‘Leave me alone.’
He was so close she could have stretched out her hand to touch his; she could have ruffled his hair; run her fingers along his mouth. She could have put her hands over his eyes to shut out the surprise in them. ‘Hold me,’ she wanted to cry, ‘never let me go.’ ‘Insolent,’ was what she spat out at him, ‘presumptuous.’ And to him, under her breath so only he could hear, ‘You presume on past friendship. Did you think I would waste my life for you? You come too late.’
He might have shouted her down, or spun on his heel to stalk away. She did not expect the sudden tightening of the sensuous mouth, the sudden break of his low reply as if he had difficulty in swallowing. The simplicity of that response tore at her. ‘Is that the truth?’
‘Truth!’ she wanted to cry at him. ‘What matters truth if you sign your own death warrant? Keep away from me. I am death for you.’
‘I know you not,’ she cried at last, as cold as the winter air, as deliberately hard. ‘I have never seen you before.’ And with all her strength she hit at him.
The blow was not only to persuade Wolsey’s sergeant of a truth. It was meant to convince Richard. It caught him squarely on the cheek, so hard that it thrust his head back against the wall. About them, on all sides, women gasped and men muttered aloud at such unseemliness. She did not care. If this were the only way she could conceal his identity and turn attention away from him, she would, although her heart bled for it.
He did not speak at first, fingering along his jaw; his eyes so dark she could not tell what he felt. After a while, ‘I crave your pardon,’ as distant as a stranger righting some wrong. ‘I thought you were someone else. I thought you were someone different,’ just as the king had done. And then, low-voiced, ‘Had you been other than who you are, I would not have endured such a blow.’
He straightened up, nodded curtly to Wolsey’s guard. ‘Ride on with us,’ he said. ‘I take her to where the queen is housed. That done, we part company. You where you will; this lady to join with her.’ He spoke of Philippa dispassionately; he shrugged her off, as if she no longer mattered and what had happened here today no longer was of concern to him.
He swung back onto his horse, moved ahead not looking around, the crowd parting to make room for him. And such was the force of his personality that slowly Wolsey’s guard followed, Philippa in their midst, while their sergeant, cowed into obedience, brought up the rear. Philippa’s hand was caked with blood, his blood or hers, what was the difference? She felt the icy wind pick up the snow and send it swirling in white clouds so that their footprints left a straggling line along the street. She thought, this then is the end for us. And her hopes died as his must have done.
In the palace of Tournelles, where King Louis had given up the ghost and where his queen had lived so short a while with him, the heir to the throne was being prepared for his crowning day. Tall and dark, with expressive eyes that he used to good effect, his long Roman nose hooked over a full-lipped mouth, he was admiring his image in a looking glass while the barber trimmed his beard in a style that set a new fashion. He turned this way and that, well pleased with his reflection. Even half-dressed he looked what he was, a young man full of life, so lecherous, they said, that no woman was safe from him, equally at ease in squalid garret or lord’s mansion, wherever there was a maid to break in or a wife to seduce. His uncle, the dead Louis, might well have been envious of him. He was thinking now of his uncle’s wife. He had counted on his charm to win her over, and was depressed that his tactics had failed. They had never let him down before and he still did not know why. This failure in fact was clouding his happiness at the thought of his coronation day. For the more he had pursued the new queen ardently, tantalized by her rejection, the more she had withdrawn, inflaming his ardour anew. His obsession had so alarmed his councillors, that they in turn had alerted the one person he listened to, his mother, whom he revered and feared. She had borne down on him in wrath, berating him for stupidity, to no avail. And it was his bad luck that now, today, in the midst of these preparations for his crowning, she should take it upon herself to confront him on the same issue, pushing the attendants in the room aside, although they tried to keep her out.
Louise of Savoy had ridden hard from her home in Cognac, and her gouty legs were aching from being jogged up and down over miles of rough roads. Stubbornness was written on her, from top to toe, from her slate grey eyes and curly wig (which she kept tied on), to her large men’s boots, designed to ease her sore toes. Since her son’s birth she had had one aim in mind, to make him king, and to that end she had devoted herself, body and soul. Louis’s marriage had been a blow; his death so soon, a blessing. Only one thing was left to disturb her satisfaction, and she had come to settle it. She did not mean to let Francis jeopardize his claims by hankering after his uncle’s widow.
'Eh bien, mon gars' she said on entering, too shrewd to tackle him head on, speaking in the common French of her own land, in a coarse, familiar way (which, people sneered, her son had inherited). ‘How does it feel to be a king?’ She gestured to the servants to withdraw, and taking up a towel began to dry his fine white skin, as if he were still a child, her ‘Caesar’, as she called him, destined to wear a crown.
Francis pretended to bask in her adulation, but in reality he was alarmed. Only two things interested him, hunting and lechery, but although he seemed stupid, he was not so stupid that he did not know when he had acted irresponsibly, or when his mother had wind of it. He let her speak of the late king’s funeral, suggesting ways to hurry it; he listened to her suggestions for the coronation feast at Reims, waiting for her to get to the point. Reims, she was saying, was where French kings had been crowned for over a thousand years, not a murder among them, thank you; no rebellions, or plots or uprisings. And each king descended in honourable line; no upstarts either, praise God, unlike those English lords, forever at war, killing each other off like flies. And their women cold as fish. Why, that Mary Tudor was an insipid thing, no wonder the courtiers’ name for her was ‘White Queen’, like a rabbit with her protruding teeth.
‘Calme-toi, ma mère,' Francis yawned, resignedly. He sighed and scratched under his new shirt. He recognized a lecture in the making and braced himself.
‘What’s to be done with her then?’ Louise sounded exasperated. ‘We can’t keep her shut up and we can’t let her go, not with all those French lands that your wretched uncle gave to her. French lands; that means your lands, my son; she’ll keep them all unless you look sharp.’
Francis sighed again. The theme was a recurring one of which his mother never tired. ‘And suppose I marry her myself,’ he ventured tentatively, as he had done before. ‘Suppose I leave poor Claude’ (for such was the name of the young wanton’s wife, although he seldom lived with her). ‘Suppose the Pope gives me a divorce; suppose I take Mary, lands and all; suppose . . .’
‘Suppose fiddlestick,’ Louise snapped. �
�Poor Claude indeed. The people love her, you fool. They’d never let you put her aside, not to marry with that sale anglaise whom they despise.’
Francis shrugged. The idea had appealed to him and had been worth one last try. Now he sat back and listened to his mother’s advice. Poor Claude indeed; Francis’s wife had as little hope of him, except perhaps a yearly visit to beget a child. She might as well have let Mary have him for all the pleasure she got from him.
Louise began to limp back and forth, debating with herself. ‘Now look here,’ she burst out, ‘if you’ve been a fool and bedded her and if there’s a child then you’re done for. Any child of hers will seem, must seem, Louis’s get and that means it’ll become the heir, not you. If you don’t want to be displaced by a bare-bottomed brat, find her a new husband quick.’ She poked her son in the ribs for emphasis. ‘Who’d know the difference?’ she said. ‘I mean, who’d tell if the child were Louis’s, or yours, or some new husband’s? But it’d have to be done at once, before the six weeks are out or everyone’ll suspect what you’re up to.’
It took Francis a moment or two to unravel what she meant and when he did his face lightened. He never denied or accepted the original charge but he certainly appreciated her concern. It would be more than awkward if Mary were to produce a son and although he was convinced the old king had been incapable of fathering it that was something that was hard to prove. So he watched Louise of Savoy fumble in her pockets for a sheet of names, all loyal to French interests and therefore suitable suitors for the ex-queen. He fingered it, practical details boring him, more interested in working out his night time escapades. So when his mother added, meaningfully, ‘And there’re other problems too,’ he let her speak of them, showing a concern he did not feel. ‘First there’s that English duke,’ she said, ‘turned up like a bad sou. They say she once was hot for him. And then, there’s the young man Louis was fond of, what is he still here for? Best keep an eye on both of them. Although since the duke has been in Henry’s bad graces he’s not likely to trouble us.’
She rolled the parchment up, deep in thought, pretending the idea was her son’s. In fact she was well content with the outcome of this interview. For the most part she did not condemn his adventuring, provided he kept it under control. ‘As for the young English miss,’ she said, noticing how he pricked up at that piece of news, ‘they say that she has the backing of Wolsey, no less. So, I suggest we allow her to attend the queen as a token of our good will. Wolsey is more tricky than a weasel. Best keep on his good side. And best not to offend Henry either if we can avoid it. If the thought sticks in his skull that his sister’s been taken advantage of, that lump of a king could make trouble.’
So she marshalled her son, using intrigue as well as politics to forward that one aim of hers. In time she was to receive the English duke, letting him flirt with her, although she was old enough to have mothered him. She eyed the younger Richard, rather fancying him, confident she had all in hand. She did not take their determination into account. Nor did she count on the loyalty of a young girl to outwit her. But by the time Richard and his cavalcade had wound their way through the snowy streets towards the Palace of Cluny, she had sent the word to let that English girl inside.
‘I leave you here,’ Richard told Philippa, straight-backed, an officer saluting a lady of rank, as if he had never seen her barefoot in the mud on a country road. ‘But first I have a suggestion.’
He had left Wolsey’s men huddled in a group at the bottom of the stairs and had come on foot to help her climb their slippery steps. At the top he looked down at her. The mark on his cheek had faded but he still was pale, his eyes fathomless. And, wiping her face where the sleet had beaded into drops, she thought he will never know why I cried for him.
‘Tell the queen the duke is here,’ Richard said. ‘Tell her that we can be relied upon. When you have joined her, make some sign that can be seen from the outside. We shall be waiting. And one last thing.’ His face was stern, unyielding. ‘Next time you break faith with a man, do not choose me. Remember, trust goes both ways. Break trust, you break yourself.’ He paused, then more briskly, ‘Watch your back. Francis is as pliable as a hollow reed, and Wolsey no more trustworthy than his king. And we are cut off here from everyone.’
He brushed past her, his boots catching at her skirts. She watched him clatter down the stairs and mount his horse, dismissing Wolsey’s men as if he had in truth authority over them. Perhaps he had; a king’s envoy commands respect. But when those men were on their own, in their own quarters, when they began to rehash the events of the day, surely their suspicions would rise again, and they would send to their master for advice. The blizzard at least might delay them for a while, no weather for man or beast abroad. Richard would seek his former patron to offer his services again, his duties for the king finished with. And she would find her mistress. Loyalty is a fine thing, Philippa heard Wolsey sneer. She thought, ‘And bitterly have I paid for it.’ And when the doors of Cluny closed and the oiled locks slid back in place, she thought again, ‘Today I have lost the only friend I had; the price was not worth the loss.’
It was cold inside the old palace, once used as a religious house. The very straw spread on the stones seemed to freeze, and the walls dripped like some icicle. When she breathed the air steamed, and the black mourning cloths were stiff with frost. Fumes of dark smoke from inadequate fires hung about the ceilings, choking her. The French ladies whom Louise had left in charge were ice-like too, correct and cold, all dressed in black. They surrounded Philippa like starlings, gliding noiselessly across the hall, strange gaolers for a king’s widow. The chamber where that queen was kept was large, its windows shuttered so no light could penetrate, only a flicker of fire for warmth, and one four-poster bed to fill the space. The queen, the ex-queen, the dowager queen, lay huddled beneath the coverlets. Her pinched face and frightened eyes reminded Philippa of someone, her mother perhaps, waiting for her stepfather. And so perhaps the queen watched, dreading the return of those French ladies whom she could not understand and who never left her alone. Seeing Philippa she held out her arms in a childish display of affection.
‘Where have you been?’ she cried almost poutingly. ‘I have been looking for you. Send them away. They will kill me here with their dislike. Have you come to take me home?’
But later at night, when those French ladies withdrew, protestingly, and the queen had time to speak, words spilling out of her as if dammed up, Philippa went quietly to the windows and as carefully unfastened the shutters. Six weeks will be too long to remain here, she thought, for Mary Tudor or for me. There must be some way out.
Beyond the window was a walkway, where in ordinary times a sentry paced. Tonight it was half-covered with snow and deserted. She stood listening, craning through the soft white mist as the snow continued to drift, the first of the storms that were to block the city streets. There was no sound, except the small crackling of ice falls from the roof, like miniature avalanches. She could see neither sky nor ground; there was no colour, everything was white. But presently somewhere below she heard the strike of a boot upon a stone, not exactly a footstep, but a scrape, as if a heel had caught and its wearer had stopped to stamp it clear. Accompanying that sound came a voice raised in cheerful disharmony. Some drunken roisterer perhaps, late to bed, was defying the storm’s effect, and ignoring court mourning (although who would be out on such a night was hard to imagine). The song itself was haunting, a tune she remembered, the words setting her heart thumping.
There was a knight sought out his lady fair,
She waited him her castle within,
Trela, trela, trela
There was only one man she knew who knew the song and who would sing it in such a way, almost careless of personal consequence. She crept back into the room, and seizing the candle stub, relit it from the fire and set it on the window sill. It guttered there for a moment, but perhaps the watcher below would take it for a sign. After a while the singing stopped, the
n presently resumed, dying away fitfully. For a long while Philippa leaned from the window, until the snow had drifted inside the room and made small piles around her feet. The thought that Richard Montacune was still in Paris, even though he had not stayed for her, gave her the sensation that spring had suddenly come to keep her warm.
The queen’s story was soon told. ‘I do not like any of them,’ she said. ‘The king was kind perhaps but he was like a father, not a husband. His courtiers used to scoff and called me parvenue. They said my father had all his children married to foreigners so we would be accepted by old established royalty. That was why my brothers were married to the same wife. That way too, his grandchildren would have less excuse to dispute the crown.’ She bit her lip. ‘Once,’ she said, ‘when the king was ill in bed, Francis came to talk with him. He pretended to speak about hunting just to amuse the sick man, but under the cover of the table top he tried to put his hand on me. When he felt between my legs, I opened them.’ She gave her mirthless giggle. ‘And when I clamped them shut his hand was caught.’ She laughed again. ‘He looked a fool,’ she cried, ‘sitting there with only one hand. And I think my husband guessed. He began to speak of a fox whom he had seen trapped by its tail. And then even Francis blushed.’