The Queen's Lover: A Novel

by Vanora Bennett

  With the hindsight offered by his new fifteen-year-old life, these memories had come to the fore. They'd got mixed up with the whispers and snickers of the southern courtiers; the vicious stories Bernard of Armagnac told in his cups about the Queen's sluts of ladies-in-waiting, getting drunk at dinner and stripping for the guard commanders, while their fat old mistress cackled and cheered them on. They were stories he was too embarrassed, still, to repeat himself, but couldn't entirely doubt. Not to mention the angrier talk about the thousands and thousands of livres she'd spent on her pleasures; the muttered judgments that she, single-handedly, had all but destroyed France; that she was even more dangerous than Burgundy. Charles had almost forgotten the other nightmares, the dreams that had so troubled him while he was still a child in Paris, in which wild-eyed butchers with axes chased him up and down the palace corridors; or in which the hard, cold eyes and eagle nose of his uncle of Burgundy stared at him in wordless fury as a flash of steel hissed down at him. They had receded, and blended themselves into the all-encompassing fury he felt toward his mother.

  When he thought of before, what he remembered best was always feeling guilty. It came back to him now, with a surge of seething, hateful resentment: back then, he'd always thought it must be his fault; that he and Catherine must somehow have done something naughty; that they were being punished. He remembered his mother's voice: "No, it was the green one you were given," when he knew there'd never been a green one, only the blue one, and that was in her hand, and she wasn't going to give it to him. Her voice, accusing: "You had the green one, and you've deliberately hidden it." Or lost it, or broken it. The beatings, for the made-up wrongs he hadn't done. He knew better now, though, than to still feel guilty. He knew, with a fierce, implacable rage, which had been stoked by every bitter flash of memory that he'd ever had, in the sunny, luxuriously feather-bedded existence he'd been delivered to, that all those childish guilts had been mistaken; that he'd never done anything wrong. That it was his mother, with her angry rolls of fat and the dark whiskers quivering on her chin and the malevolent eyes, who was to blame for everything.

  He knew he had to make an appearance here; for form's sake. But he didn't want to see his pathetic, mad, broken father, who they said had been locked away, raving, practically since he'd left; and he certainly didn't want to see her.

  "Your father's already arrived from Paris, with your sister Catherine," Yolande whispered, and her eyes flashed encouragement. "They say he's in good health; and you'll be happy to see her again."

  Dutifully, Charles nodded; but he wasn't even sure of that. There'd been a time when Catherine had been his only protector; of course there had; he'd relied on her utterly. They'd spied on council meetings from behind the arras; they'd foraged for food in their mother's kitchens; they'd begged Christine to bring them picnics. But now--when he'd found so much rock-solid love in his new world--he could hardly remember his sister. She'd just been another ragged child with her eyes full of anxieties and guilt and fears. He didn't want to feel those things again. He wanted to get away.

  Catherine looked calmly down at her mother--who hadn't got up; who never got up if she could avoid it. The Queen was as magnificently dressed and jewel-studded as ever, and, as ever, had a light dusting of sugar down her front. Catherine wasn't entirely surprised to feel a reluctant stirring of love for her. She knew it would only be a moment before her mother would be digging fingers into a bowl again; mumbling, "dragees; very good; try," and twinkling conspiratorially at her. She found herself even looking forward to the predictability of it. She might forget you if you were out of sight; she might accuse you of stealing things she'd lost, or of knowing about things she'd never told you, or of plotting to keep her from things you'd never thought of for yourself, but you could rely on Isabeau to be sweet with you if you were in the room with her when she was in a good mood. You might share a pleasure, or have a mischievous laugh together. God knew there were few enough pleasures these days. No wonder the Queen sat here all day, eating and dreaming.

  Catherine's peace of mind today came from the knowledge that enough time had gone by to make a difficult conversation about the past unnecessary. They both knew now that Catherine looked after the King; they both knew she must know everything. But caring for her father had changed Catherine. She had decided, when broaching a meeting of the family at Vincennes, that she didn't want to risk making her mother angry, or open more Pandora's boxes and let more demons out. There were enough in the air as it was. She'd let the past be. She needed to concentrate on today--to scotch the talk that had taken hold that the King and Queen lived irreconcilably apart; that the King's madness was permanent; that a weak fifth son was coming into a divided, ruined kingdom.

  It hadn't been easy to persuade Isabeau to let the rest of the family join her here at first.

  "Charles coming back north is an opportunity for all of us," Catherine told her mother, when she rode to Vincennes to discuss it. "We can show that our family is strong and united...make Papa feel secure...give Charles a good enough welcome to encourage him to stay permanently in Paris."

  Her mother pursed up her lips and looked skeptical. Her fingers were feeling along the tabletop. Catherine pushed the sweet bowl closer.

  "We need Charles here," Catherine said. "We need a good king-in-waiting. Papa will never be strong enough. You and Papa need to greet Charles together. You and Papa need to live in the same place."

  She didn't try to explain. She shouldn't have to. Isabeau must see that it was her duty to be near her husband. But the Queen just gazed expressionlessly at her daughter.

  "Huh," Isabeau grunted in the end. "I suppose you know he attacks me...whenever he's like that. Tried to strangle me once. Not safe for me to go near. Hasn't been for years."

  She didn't sound upset, or frightened; she sounded glib, as though she was making an excuse to get out of an unwanted social engagement.

  Catherine pushed every angry response out of her head.

  "Papa's not mad now," she said firmly. "He's fragile; but he's sane. He talks about you. Misses you."

  Whenever Catherine felt angry with her mother, which was often, she tried to call to mind the explanation she'd come up with over the past year or so for all Isabeau's excesses. It was too simple, Catherine had decided, to believe the Queen had deliberately brought darkness on the royal house of France--although most people did say something of the sort. Catherine's own, kinder conclusion was that almost everything about her mother could be explained by her terror of poverty. She knew Isabeau of Bavaria had come to France with none of the financial provision for her old age that usually formed part of a royal marriage contract; her family had been too delighted to get the glittering marriage to the French King to make too many conditions. So Isabeau had suddenly become queen of what she liked to wave her hand and call "all this"--but "all this" would be snatched away without warning if the King died. And King Charles' illness must have been a perpetual reminder that she might at any moment end up a widow, and a penniless one too. That explained why Isabeau couldn't look at the poor--why she turned away from beggars in disgust; hid behind her fan or shawl; wouldn't give alms. It explained why she'd always squirreled away the little gold treasures she liked to be given, and stole, magpie-fashion, when she wasn't given them, getting baubles sewn into curtains, or packed into false linings in trunks, or bagged up in cubbyholes in stables, ready for escape.

  Once the King and Queen were back together, Catherine thought, she'd ask her father to settle a proper dower on her mother. That might be enough to keep the Queen out of politics; stop her trying to fight Charles over money and influence as she had Louis. For now, Catherine reminded herself, if her mother couldn't resist helping herself to things, perhaps it wasn't entirely her fault. For all the vast bulk of her, the wrinkles, the whiskers, her mother was, in some ways, still a child in the grip of a nightmare. If she couldn't deny her appetites, it was because they were signs of her fears. The important thing was to calm her mother
's fears; then she would, possibly, behave with the public-spiritedness expected of a queen.

  "Papa was saying only the other day that it was time he settled a proper dower on you," she murmured.

  Isabeau sat quietly, sucking on a sweet, nodding her head. She didn't acknowledge the comment, but Catherine could tell she'd heard.

  "You're the key to everything," Catherine said. "Please, Maman--say you'll try; make this meeting a success."

  Isabeau's answer, when it came, was casual. "Ach, you know I'll do whatever I can," she said, swallowing her morsel. "Anything, if it brings us all together again--and banishes that scum John of Burgundy back to where he belongs. If ever I saw true evil, it's in that man. Those eyes, full of darkness. The Destroyer, that's what he is. We all know where he should be. In Hell."

  She snapped her lips shut; but her eyes went on flashing with the memory of her enemy.

  However, once she'd helped herself to another sweet, Isabeau turned affectionate. "And of course I'm delighted we're all to be reunited--me, you, Papa, and dear, pudgy little Charlot, with his fingers always in the sweet bowl..."

  For an exasperated second, Catherine wondered if her mother remembered, or had ever even realized, that she and her brother had spent most of their childhood stealing food because Isabeau hadn't bothered to make sure they were properly looked after. She took a deep breath in, determined not to let herself feel any irritation. There was too much at stake today.

  Isabeau sighed sentimentally, and caught Catherine's eye. Catherine made a point of smiling. "You know, of all my children, I think you two were always my favorites...So pretty...so adorable...and so happy together...What a joy that those days are coming back."

  Catherine's father, blinking in his old mild astonishment and looking round in the sunlight, had not left her mother's side since they'd met in the gallery. Isabeau had heaved herself to her feet and put her arm affectionately around the husband she hadn't seen for a year. Now she was whispering into his ear and twinkling. Catherine could hardly believe how overjoyed the old man was looking; how well her mother was behaving; how her own heart was bursting with hope.

  "Let's go for a walk," she said gently to her father. She'd arranged for Charles and his followers to meet them in the gardens; she thought birdsong and green leaf-light would lighten everyone's mood.

  She wanted everything to be as relaxed as possible for the meeting with Charles. She'd heard about the hostile letter his mother-in-law had written to Isabeau; she knew his southern family were suspicious. He must be frightened; he must have spent the two years since he'd left Paris expecting a peaceful future in the south, not to be forced to lead France out of its wars. Charles was timid by nature; she remembered his nightmares. And he was just fifteen. She wanted to reassure him.

  There was so much to hope for; but what was making her heart beat fastest, as they stepped out through the flowers, was simply the prospect of seeing his face again.

  There they were--a dozen of them, walking under the lime alley, led by a tall young man with the tiny, spry, black-eyed Yolande of Aragon on his arm. Catherine recognized the big thickset man just behind, the one with the broken nose, as Count Bernard of Armagnac. They were all wearing respectful black; all elegant with an undefinable foreign grace. She just couldn't see Charles.

  She shaded her eyes and kept walking, expecting the features of one of the indeterminate figures moving toward her under the trees to resolve itself into Charles' fragile little face, with its freckles and baby skin and blue eyes. When she finally realized he must be the tall young man with Yolande of Aragon--thin as a rake, with big ankles and knees and wrists, and his skin browner and harder than she remembered, with his facial features altered and lengthened and roughened by manhood and a giant Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, though still with the solemn blue eyes she remembered--she nearly laughed with the sheer relief of it.

  "Look," she said excitedly to her father and mother, "that's Charles--and look how he's grown!"

  And she flitted off ahead, kicking up her heels, feeling everything coming right at last, with the sun on her back, laughing out loud ass her an toward him.

  She could see them lift their heads to watch her.

  She thought Charles might see her and come running to meet her. But he didn't. He stood stock-still, staring.

  Still flying over the flagstones, her face full of delight, Catherine felt a prickle of apprehension, as if by showing her pleasure at seeing her brother she'd broken some unknown rule of etiquette.

  Was she...should she have...?

  It was too late to change anything. She reached the Provencal group; rushed past them with little nods and bows; and came to a breathless halt in front of Charles.

  She'd meant to hug him and whirl him round until he squealed with laughter. She was longing to hear his laughter. But the cautious look she caught in those owlish eyes made her realize she shouldn't do anything to dent his new adult dignity. He hadn't let go of Yolande of Aragon's arm; he clearly didn't want any whirling. So instead she put her hands on his shoulders, smiled as joyously as she dared, given the frigid correctness of this group of strangers, and bent decorously forward to kiss him on each cheek.

  "Sister," he said, and bowed, and smiled. But she didn't detect any real pleasure in his face.

  She thought: He's feeling shy.

  Then she thought: He looks almost--angry.

  The walk helped dissipate some of the tensions. After Charles had bowed frigidly to his parents, who hung back looking wary, he paired off with Catherine. Yolande of Aragon moved graciously back to take Count Bernard's arm. The King and Queen, both clearly relieved that Catherine was going first with her brother, who'd become so tall and such a stranger, walked with them. The retinue streamed behind.

  Catherine slipped her arm into that of this new, near-adult Charles; felt the awkward stiffness of his muscles under the thick doublet. She was trying not to be disappointed. A voice in her head was telling her: It will all take time; it's been two years; we all have to get used to each other again.

  And it felt for a while as though it was happening. As Catherine peppered the stranger Charles with questions about his journey, his answers gradually grew from monosyllables to, at least, polite chitchat. In a pause between questions, he even glanced sideways at her, and volunteered, in his new, deep, unnatural-seeming man's voice: "I wouldn't have recognized you, you know..."

  That startled her. "I haven't changed, have I?" she said, a little uncertainly. She hadn't had much time these last months to think about her appearance; but she was pleased, at least, that he was taking this personal tone.

  He nodded. "You look so serious. Your face is thinner." He laughed, but not the laugh she'd dreamed of; instead a distant, short bark. "You seem older."

  She didn't know how to take that as a compliment; but she nodded her head, a little sadly, accepting it was probably true. "It's been a difficult time," she said. "It hasn't been easy with Papa..."

  He nodded, and looked properly at her; and she saw a spark of life, maybe even of understanding, in his face. But she didn't want to talk to him yet about their father, so she added, more brightly: "I've been so looking forward to seeing you again," and squeezed his arm. She was encouraged to see a reluctant smile turn the corners of his mouth up.

  Trying once again to reawaken the natural, free-talking, hushed conspiracy of children, she whispered: "So, tell me, what's it like to be married? Is Marie of Anjou still so grand?"

  For a second, he almost relaxed; almost giggled. They'd laughed so much together at Marie of Anjou's haughtily turned-up nose before; how could he not? But she felt him stop himself. "She's a good wife," he said stiffly. "I'm blessed in my new life."

  Abruptly, he turned his head back to add a word or two to the conversation between Bernard of Armagnac and his mother-in-law. Catherine saw light come to his face as he turned their way; an impish grin flickered on his lips. He looks so happy with them, she thought; not owlish at all. I don
't remember him looking like that.

  Unexpectedly, she found herself full of a childish emotion far from the carefree mood she'd been trying to foster. She felt left out. Charles had found a new family; he loved them most now. He knew marriage; whereas perhaps she never would. Disconsolately, she thought: No one even thinks of marrying me to anyone anymore; and I couldn't go away and leave Papa even if they did...

  Knowing this feeling to be illogical, Catherine put it aside. She was the one who refused to discuss marriage, after all; who'd pursed her lips and hurried about her business whenever Christine had begun musing, apparently innocently, on the charms and talents of one young prince or another, trying to draw her out. Christine's inability to stop harping on about marriageable young men and the virtues of the married state, however often Catherine discouraged her, whether gently ("There'll be time enough after the war") or, occasionally, brusquely ("Haven't we got enough on our hands already with Papa?") was the real reason Catherine had not asked her to come to Vincennes for this family meeting. She knew Christine must have been quietly disappointed to be left behind in Paris. She guessed Christine would have loved to be one of the first to see Charles. And she respected Christine for being too proud to try and invite herself. Christine had self-control when it mattered.

  In Christine's honor, she touched Charles' arm and murmured: "Christine sends you her love..."

  But she could tell, from the second too long that he took to turn back to her, that when he did his face would again be set in its polite, tense, reluctant expression; and that it would take much more than a walk under the trees to make the distance between her brother and herself disappear.