The Forbidden Queen

CHAPTER SIX

I wrote to Henry, taking the matter into my own hand with a direction that shook me.

My lord,

Now that the roads are dry and passable, I think it would be good for me to visit with my parents in Paris. And with you too if you deem it possible. I understand that the fortress of Meaux has at last fallen to English hands. Perhaps you will have a short time to welcome me to France.

Your loving wife,

Katherine.

Spring had arrived. Travellers began to people the roads, groups of merchants and pilgrims about their business, travelling together for safety. The market in Windsor was thronged with townsfolk glad to emerge after the winter. I watched them from the walls, listening to the cries and music that spoke so eloquently of life going on outside the castle, and with them had come that urgency, to lodge in my mind like a burr under a saddle.

My letter received a reply, and smartly, delivered by Lord John. Yes! Henry would give me leave to join him at last. I tore open the single sheet, scattering the wax in my joyful haste.

To my wife Katherine,

It is not a good time for you to travel in France. Meaux has fallen but matters between your brother and me are by no means settled. I would not wish you to be placed in any danger.

No! I swallowed against the intense disappointment and read on.

I think you will see the wisdom of remaining in England until I consider it safe for you to arrive. Your safety is my prime concern, you understand. I will send a courier when time and events permit.

Henry.

So my safety was his prime concern, was it? He would send a courier, would he? Then why did I get the impression that such an invitation would never happen? My desolate restlessness was replaced by fury. It blazed, for by now I had not seen Henry for over a twelve-month, so long ago that when I closed my eyes I had to concentrate to bring his features into focus. Would I eventually forget that direct stare, the straight nose and uncompromising mouth? Would I need his portrait to remind me?

Oh, Henry! You have not even given me a sound reasoning why I should not, merely it is not a good time. When will it be a good time?

‘He says no.’

‘I know.’

‘What is he doing now?’ I asked Lord John, looking up from the brisk refusal that he had brought. ‘I thought Meaux had asked for terms at last.’

‘Yes. It’s taken.’

‘But he has no wish to see me. You don’t have to deny it,’ I said, seeing John’s failure to find a soft reply, trying not to read the pity in his face. ‘I know that his feelings for me are…mild.’ How painful it was to admit that in public. ‘But I cannot accept his reasoning. In fact, I will not accept.’

There was a lull in hostilities. If Henry would not come to me, then I must go to him, and it seemed to me to be high time Henry came face to face with his son. It was time my baby travelled to the country that he would one day rule. It was time he became acquainted with his Valois grandparents.

How easy it was to make that decision, and to inform John of my wishes, refusing any advice to the contrary. My energy restored with the prospect of action, I marched to Young Henry’s room, swept the baby up from his cradle and took him to look out of the window in the general direction of where his father might be at that very moment. Young Henry was growing, I noticed. He was heavier in my arms now.

‘Shall we go to France? Shall I take you to see your father?’

He grinned with toothless gums. ‘Then we will go.’

But first, before I saw Henry again, I knew I must discover the truth to some unanswered questions. After months of inactivity, I was swept with a desire to discover what was hidden, and perhaps to build some bridges.

It was not at all what I had expected when, accompanied by an impressive escort, including both Gloucester and Bishop Henry, I made a bid to discover all I could about Henry’s imprisoned stepmother and the troubling prophecy.

Leeds Castle, a beautiful little gem set in a sapphire lake created by two encircling arms of a river, the waters reflecting the blue of the sky, was no grim dungeon for Madam Joanna. A soft imprisonment—yet still, all in all, it was an imprisonment if she lived under the custody of Sir John Pelham, as Bishop Henry informed me, and was not free to travel. I was both intrigued and anxious. What would this visit reveal about Madam Joanna—or indeed about Henry?

We were announced into her chamber: Joanna of Navarre, Queen Dowager of England and second wife of Henry’s father. She did not rise from her chair when Gloucester and Bishop Henry kissed her cheeks with obvious fondness. And I saw why she did not stand when she placed an affectionate hand on Gloucester’s sleeve.

Elegant she may be, her pure white hair coiffed, the folds of her houppelande rich with embroidered panels, jewels gleaming at neck and wrist, but her hands were crippled into claws and her shoulders rigid, and any movement deepened the lines between her brows. Discomfort notwithstanding, I was welcomed with a smile and a speculative regard from direct grey eyes. Entertained with music and wine, Gloucester and Bishop Henry proceeded to enliven her existence with news of court trivia and some comment on what Henry was doing in France.

Madam Joanna absorbed it all, then announced with quiet authority: ‘I wish to speak with Katherine.’ And when we were alone, duke and bishop obediently departing: ‘Sit next to me. I hoped you would come and visit me.’

I moved to the stool at her side. ‘I did not realise, my lady.’ What a poor excuse it sounded even to my ears, and what an appalling situation. ‘I did not even know—’

‘That I was a prisoner.’ She completed my thought with astonishing complacence.

‘Henry told me you chose to live a quiet life.’

‘Perhaps I would, in the circumstances.’ She lifted her arthritic hands with a little moue of distaste, before allowing them to fall gently back into her lap. ‘But this is no choice.’ Her smile was wry and humourless, her eyes sharp, demanding an honest response. ‘And no doubt you wish to know why my stepson keeps me under lock and key?’

‘Mistress Waring said that…’ How could I voice something so terrible?

‘I was accused of witchcraft.’ Madam Joanna frowned as if the words pained her. ‘It is true. So I am accused. Do you believe it?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think Bishop Henry does. Or Gloucester.’ Their warm acknowledgement of the Queen Dowager, their affection for her, could not be ignored.

‘I don’t think Henry believes it either,’ Madam Joanna added dryly. ‘But he needed me to be vulnerable.’

Again, I was lost for words. ‘But why?’

‘So that he could confiscate my dower lands and income, of course.’ Her candid explanation startled me, even more her calm acceptance of it. ‘England needed as much gold as she could raise in order to pursue the French wars. The easiest source to plunder was my dower. So how to get his hands on it? It was so simple. He had me accused of threatening his life with necromancy.’

‘But that’s despicable.’

‘I cannot disagree. And—do you know?—I have never been put on trial. I have been unfairly accused and incarcerated for more than two years in one castle or another.’

It was too much for me to take in. ‘I can’t believe that he would do that.’

‘How long have you lived with Henry? Have you not yet learnt that he can be ruthless?’ Madam Joanna’s smile and voice acquired an edge worthy of a honed sword. ‘Where do you think he got the money for your dower?’

If I was horrified before, now I was shocked almost into disbelief. It was a shattering revelation, undermining all my pleasure in what I had once considered to be Henry’s true consideration for me.

To compensate for my lack of a dower in gold coin, Henry had provided me with the vast sum, to my eyes, of a hundred thousand marks to spend every year, as well as gifting me lands and estates, manors and castles, put aside for my own personal use. Henry had ensured that I was not a penniless supplicant, and once I had marvelled at his generosity. Now I learned that it was at the expense of this tragic lady.

‘My dower was exploited and I remain under duress until Henry decides to free me.’ Madam Joanna tilted her chin, wincing a little. ‘I’m not sure I can ever forgive him for that.’

I could think of nothing to say that would assuage my guilt or add to Madam Joanna’s comfort. Her situation was truly deplorable. All I could manage was, ‘I am so sorry.’

‘Why should you be? It was not your doing. Henry needed to fund your dowry, and mine was the obvious source. He is a man driven to reclaim the possessions of his ancestors and ensure England’s greatness,’ Madam Joanna continued. ‘The French war and England’s victory is his only concern.’

‘I know it is,’ I murmured. ‘Do you think I have not seen it for myself?’ It seemed disloyal to admit it, but Madam Joanna’s plain speaking encouraged me.

Seeing my unease, Madam Joanna leaned to close her hand awkwardly over mine. ‘That is not good. You should go to your husband,’ she said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘It is almost a year now, is it not, since you last saw him? I know Henry very well, and I know that you should be with him. He allows his mind to be taken up with the here and now—and sometimes he needs to be reminded that there are other people who need his attention.’

‘But I don’t think he wants me with him.’ For the first time I confessed my fears aloud, seduced by the compassion in this gentle woman. ‘He does not love me, you see. He never has…’

Her brows lifted. ‘How could he not love so beautiful a wife as you?’

‘He never pretended that he did. I thought he did, and I was naïve enough to think that he might. He was kind and chivalrous, you see.’

Her hands tightened imperceptibly. ‘You poor girl. How could you know what was in his mind? I never could. As a young man he never permitted anyone to see what was important to him—almost in case it was snatched away and he lost it. And he has excellent manners. How does one read what he is thinking behind that impossible facade of dignified control? I don’t suppose he has changed.’

Madam Joanna paused, then urged, her voice no longer soft, ‘Go to him. If you wish to make anything of your marriage other than a distant circling of minds that never meet and have no understanding of each other, go and be with him in France. It’s too dangerous to take the young boy, but Mistress Waring will care for your child. She will let no harm come to him.’

‘Yes. I will.’ It seemed such wise advice, such an intuitive reading of my life and Henry’s. And such solace to my heart that I was not the only one to be misled by Henry’s excellent manners.

‘Make him notice you. Beguile him. Lure him from the battlefield, if only for a little while.’ She smiled with a touch of very female mischief, which sat oddly on her weary features but hinted at her charm as a young woman. ‘It should not be beyond a beautiful woman.’

Yes, Madam Joanna was wise indeed. Perhaps if Henry and I were to live together again, away from battlefields and campaigns, we could build a closeness, an understanding. Perhaps he would even grow to have an affection for me. Were not all things possible with God’s grace?

‘I will do it.’ The resolve settled in my belly.

She patted my hand carefully. ‘Henry, I am certain, does know what a jewel he has in you. You are still young, with all your life before you. All you have to do is remind him and bring him home to England once in a while.’ We smiled our understanding. ‘And now I expect you must go. Your escort will be champing at the bit and damning gossiping women to the very devil. But you must come again. Sometimes I am lonely.’

This brought to my mind what had been hovering over my head during the entire visit.

‘Mistress Waring said I should ask you about a prophecy,’ I said.

‘Did she?’ Madam Joanna’s all but invisible brows drew down into a line.

‘I gave birth to my son at Windsor. Henry forbade it and Mistress Waring disapproved. Henry gave no reason but Mistress Waring said there was a prophecy…’

Madam Joanna’s features sharpened as she looked away beyond the window, to the scene of freedom denied. ‘I have no truck with such things, even though some would have me guilty of a far worse crime. But, yes, there was such a prediction made to poor Mary de Bohun who did not live to see her son grow to adulthood. A venomous little comment, I would say, product of some malicious mind that had no good thought for the House of Lancaster. It was told to me by Mary’s tirewoman in a moment of unedifying gossip over a cup of ale. From what you tell me, it seems that Henry too knows of the calumny from some source—I was not aware. Do you wish to know?’

And she told me.

It did not make for comfortable hearing, thus my first instinct was to reject it. I could not believe it. I would not believe it. I need have no fear for Henry, I decided; no decision that I made would have any influence over his future achievements. But what of my son? I tucked the disquieting words away, to consider at some later date if I, insisting on having my accouchement at Windsor, had wilfully put my hand to a pattern of events that could bring no good to Young Henry.

The prophecy, known to so few but clearly to Henry, baffled me, with its enigmatic warnings and dire predictions. But then I comforted myself. Madam Joanna discarded it as no more than mischief-making. I, guided by her good sense, would do the same.

And I would take Madam Joanna’s advice. At the beginning of May, leaving my son in the care of his besotted parcel of nurses, escorted by Lord John and with a fair wind behind us, I sailed to Harfleur. Before I left, I wielded a pair of shears with great care.

I had learned much that disturbed me about Henry’s treatment of Madam Joanna, yet she bore no grudges. Could I be equally tolerant, knowing his obsession with the campaign in France drove him in all things? I did not know. But in spite of everything that lay between us, I knew that I must make Henry notice me.

The closer I got to Paris, the more nervous I became. In the year in which we had lived apart, I had changed and I now accepted Henry’s coolness towards me. It was a fact that could not be denied, and surely I was now mature enough to shoulder the burden that my regard for him might not be returned. And yet I continued to hope that Henry would at least rejoice at seeing me, even when it was a hope difficult to maintain.

I could imagine Henry rejoicing at nothing but a hard-won battle, a successfully completed siege. In my head I could hear the timbre of his voice but not the greeting he would offer me. And what would I say to him? He had, after all, forbidden me to make this journey.

And then there was the whole weight of Madam Joanna’s imprisonment. I suspected, as did she, that witchcraft had been a carefully crafted ploy to remove her dower lands from her because Henry had needed them for me. I felt the guilt of it, even though the lady had absolved me. I wondered if I would have the courage to challenge Henry with his calculated cruelty towards a woman who had done him no harm.

I could not excuse Henry, however hard I tried, from an act of such arrogant self-interest that it took my breath. He could indeed be ruthless when pursuing his own set purpose, and how difficult it was to sustain a regard for a man who could be so coldly unscrupulous. I had seen his vicious temper in war; now I had experienced it in the very heart of his family.

I thrust that unsettling thought away. Henry must be pleased with his victory at Meaux, with his son. Would that not cause him to smile at me and kiss me in greeting?

‘He’ll not send you home, you know,’ Lord John said, apparently seeing my anxiety. ‘You don’t have to fear that he will not treat you with respect.’

‘That is not my fear,’ I replied. My fear was that he would treat me with too much respect. That he would freeze me to the spot with frigid courtesy and an oppressive outward display of his kingship.

‘He’ll enjoy your company when he has time to think about it.’

I smiled at him sympathetically. John was trying very hard.

‘I know he does not wish me to be here. But I thought that I must.’

‘You are a courageous woman, Katherine.’

‘I assure you I am not! My heart is thudding hard enough to crack a rib.’

‘There are many forms of courage.’

When Lord John took hold of my hand, to fold it warmly in his as he helped me to dismount, I held on tightly. I would need all of his strength behind me when I came face to face with Henry.

Henry and I met just outside Paris, at the palace at Blois de Vincennes, our joint arrival coinciding fortuitously, although Henry’s was far more impressive for he had moved his whole court there after the fall of Meaux.

I was able to slip almost invisibly through the throng of military and baggage wagons, artillery and horseflesh, catching a glimpse of Henry in the midst, so that my heart lurched in familiar fashion at the sight of him, but I knew better than to approach. Henry was more amenable when things were done on his own terms.

For a moment I simply looked, held fast in fascination. He was listening to one of his captains, then pointed and issued an order. Another captain claimed his attention before marching off to carry out some instruction. I grimaced silently then left him to his arrangements.

See what an amenable wife you are becoming. Perhaps one day he will actually love you if you efface yourself enough and jump to obey.

I shook my head and settled myself with John in one of the audience chambers, and was delighted when James of Scotland found his way to join us, with all the pleasure of reunion and a cup of wine. As lively as I remembered him, his curly hair still rioting, he had grown, in height and breadth and in confidence.

‘We have missed you,’ I told him.

‘I enjoy soldiering,’ he announced.

‘Good. Are you better at it than writing verses?’

He laughed. ‘I can’t help it if you do not recognise the hand of a master.’ Then: ‘How is Joan?’

‘Languishing in London.’ And I told him of her, yet all the time my senses stretched for the sound of Henry’s footsteps, every muscle tensing when I finally heard them.

Henry walked into the room, bringing with him all the authority and regal bearing I recalled from the past. Assured, proud, supremely powerful: that was the Henry I remembered. And I stood there, wishing John and James would leave us alone together, terrified that they would. Eleven months since I had last seen him, and I had only spent a little longer than that with him as his wife. Even that had been interrupted by siege and royal progresses. Now, in the wake of such distancing, I was seized by terrible uncertainty. Predictably, my confidence drained away as he strode in, his eyes taking in every detail of who was there to meet with him. They moved to me, then over my face to John and James.

Keeping my own face carefully welcoming, I watched his expression, searching for pleasure or disinterest. Or—my belly clenched—would he castigate me for disobeying his express order to remain in England? All I could do was to sink down into a deep obeisance. I was here. I would not retreat. I rose to my full height, spine firm. Henry and John embraced, smiling, exchanging words of greeting. He clipped James on the shoulder in warm acknowledgement.

Henry walked slowly to where I stood. I said, before he could speak to me, to forestall any reprimand, foolishly, as a child might, ‘I persuaded John to bring me.’

Henry’s reply was light and cool. ‘You shouldn’t have come. And he should have known better.’

‘I wanted to see you. It is well nigh a year since…’ I said precisely. And then my mind was seized by something quite different. Fear of rejection was wiped entirely from my thoughts.

‘There were no dangers, Hal,’ his brother interposed. ‘We travelled via Rouen—the peace seems to be holding there.’

‘It is, thank God.’

Now, at last, Henry took my hands in his and, with a strained smile, saluted my cheeks.

‘You look well, Katherine.’

And you don’t look well at all.

I stopped myself from saying it, but the impulse was strong. He looked immensely tired, the lines at the corners of his eyes a mesh of crow’s feet, his skin pulled taut over cheekbone and jaw, and a line between his brows did not smooth away, even when he smiled at me at last. I thought he had lost weight. Always tall and slender rather than heavily muscled, his frame could ill-afford to lose flesh. His hands around mine looked as finely boned as a woman’s.

‘We got tired of waiting,’ explained John, and when Henry turned his head to respond I was horrified by the translucence of his skin at his temple. He looked stretched and weary to the bone, with an uncomfortable pallor beneath his campaigning bronze.

He kept hold of my hands. ‘How is my son?’

I dragged my mind from Henry’s appearance to reply with a smile, ‘He thrives. He is safe at home. Look—I have brought this for you.’ I released myself from his hold to draw from my sleeve a screw of parchment that I gave to him, explaining as he opened it, ‘It’s Young Henry’s. His hair will be like yours.’

Henry smoothed his thumb over the curl of hair and, to my relief, laughed softly. ‘Thank you.’ He tucked it into his tunic.

‘When will you come back to England to see him?’ I asked, before I could stop myself.

And there was the bleak lack of emotion that I so feared. ‘I don’t know. You should know better than to ask.’

‘What are your plans?’ John added with the slide of an apologetic eye in my direction.

Henry turned his head as if to reply. Took a breath. Then frowned.

‘Later, I think,’ he responded curtly. ‘We’ll talk later.’

‘Of course. Shall we share a flagon of good Bordeaux?’

Henry shook his head. ‘In an hour. I’ll find you.’ And strode swiftly from the room. We heard him shouting for his squire to order the disposal of his baggage—and then silence. With a little shrug, James followed him.

John and I looked at each other.

‘He worries me,’ I said simply.

‘He is weary. Long campaigns—particularly sieges—take it out of the best of soldiers. A rest will restore his good humour.’

I thought that Henry had little humour at the best of times. ‘I thought he looked ill.’

‘Lack of food, lack of sleep, that’s all.’

That was what Alice had said. I supposed she was right.

‘He was pleased to see you.’

‘Was he?’

‘It will all work out well. You’ll see. Give him time to settle in here. His victory at Meaux was a great one but draining. Sieges always are. Give him time.’

I was not convinced, and thought that John’s repetitions were an attempt to allay his own fears. I walked in front of him from the room so that he would not see the threat of tears.

When we met for supper Henry seemed much restored, although he only picked at the dishes and drank little. He left us before the end without explanation or excuse. In nervous anticipation I sat in my sheets, trembling, my hair loose and gleaming, as seductive as any bride, but Henry did not come. I had been so sure that he would. I thought the need to converse with me about Young Henry, even to take the necessary steps to produce another son, would be important, but he did not come. All my tentative hopes for our reconciliation after so long a time were dashed, ground like shells into sand under the unstoppable onslaught of the sea.

There was no leisure to be had at Vincennes. We moved on to Paris almost immediately for a ceremonial entry in the heat of May, our arrival timed to match that of my parents. We stayed at the Louvre in cushioned luxury, Isabeau and my father consigned to the worn and shabby rooms of the Hôtel de St Pol. My father was too indisposed to notice. Isabeau merely scowled her disapproval when Henry bowed to her.

Henry and I received visitors, both English and French, we attended banquets too many to count and we watched the Mystery of St George. Henry shuffled throughout and made his excuse before the final bow of the brave knight after his dispatch of the terrible dragon.

‘I’ll sit through this no longer,’ he growled, and stalked from the chamber, leaving me to smile brightly to smooth over any ill feelings. The next day we packed up and, detouring to visit the tombs of my ancestors at St Denis, travelled on to Senlis, where Henry made it clear that we would remain for a short time.

‘Thank God!’ I remarked to John. ‘At least we can draw breath.’ Even though Isabeau and my father had followed hard on our heels. ‘Perhaps he can rest at last.’

In all this time Henry had not shared my bed for even an hour, which in itself was a source of anxiety for me. One son left a throne weak. I would imagine that Henry would want more, and that this would be too good an opportunity for him to miss. How many more days could we guarantee that we would be together? But he did not. Fine drawn, strung with nerves, Henry avoided me, and I knew better than to suggest any of Alice’s nostrums. I dared not. The tension around Henry was sharp as his goshawk’s talons.

I dared not, not even when Henry came to my room that final night, when I least expected it, when I had given up hope. As I was kneeling at my prie-dieu, he entered quietly, pushing the door closed at his back and leaning against it. His face was in shadow but I could not mistake the dark smudges of exhaustion below his eyes. Where his chamber robe fell away from his neck, the tendons stood out in high relief. For a long moment he did not move. He was looking at me but I did not think he saw me.

‘Henry…’

It was the first time we had been alone together since I had returned to France. Unnerved, I stood and I stretched out my hand, my mind suddenly flooded with compassion. Where was the pride, the stern composure? Here was a man suffering from some terrible weight, but whether of mind or body I did not know. Instinct told me that he needed me, and I would respond with all the generosity in my heart, but would he tell me what troubled him?

‘Forgive me,’ he said softly.

For what I was uncertain, neither did I ask when Henry took my hand and led me to the bed, where he pushed me to sit on the edge. I would allow him to do as he wished if it would bring him relief from the pain in his clenched jaw and tired eyes. He sat beside me, his actions spare and controlled, and, leaning, he pressed his lips where my pulse beat at the base of my throat, his hand pushing my shift from my shoulders. When his kisses grew deep, almost with desperation in them, I clung to him. Then Henry groaned against my throat, becoming still. His eyes were closed, every muscle braced.

‘Henry?’

He flung away, to lie supine beside me. Then: ‘Before God, I cannot do this.’ And turned to press his face against my hair. ‘I can’t. Do you know what it takes for me to admit that?’

Despite the nerves that were clenched hard in my belly, compassion ran strong through my blood. There was some problem here, one even greater than I had feared, that Henry could not control. My hands, holding tight to his shoulders, becoming aware of the sharpness of bone and sparseness of flesh, told their own story.

‘You are unwell,’ I murmured. I slid my palms down from his shoulders, along the length of his arms where the muscles had wasted. I pushed the robe away from his chest, and I could see his collarbone stark beneath his skin. ‘What is it?’ I whispered, horrified.

His attempt at a smile, perspiration standing out on his forehead, was a poor one. ‘The usual soldiers’ disease—a bout of dysentery. But I’m on the mend—although this seems worse than I can ever recall.’

‘But you are not on the mend,’ I observed carefully, fearful of driving him away in a bout of pride. ‘It has gone on too long, hasn’t it? I think we should send for your doctor from England.’

He stiffened. I thought he would refuse, then he capitulated, which said much for his state of mind. ‘Yes. I can’t say no, can I?’

‘I will send for him. To come here—or to Vincennes?’

‘Here—to Senlis. I will come back here after the next battle. It shouldn’t be long.’ His voice was a mere thread, the old scar on his face standing out, angry and livid.

‘I don’t think you should go,’ I remonstrated, but again gently. Henry was in no state to be harangued, even if I thought it would do any good. ‘You are not well enough. You drive yourself too hard. You should stay here and recover your health.’

His response, on a laboured intake of breath, was predictable. ‘It has to be done. I’ll fight your brother at Cosne, and defeat him.’ He kissed me, a perfunctory brush of lips, on my brow. ‘God will give me the strength I need. I’ll deal with the rebels and then I’ll come back here.’

‘We should go home.’ I tried to keep the distress from my voice. ‘You should see your son.’

‘Yes. You’re right, of course. I’ll leave John in command here.’ He kissed me again. ‘I can’t rest…I can’t sleep.’ I had never seen him so close to despair.

‘Stay,’ I said, as I had so many times before, but now with a difference. ‘Stay and sleep.’

And he did. For the first time Henry spent the whole night in my bed. Restless and plagued by dreams, he found little healing, but I stayed awake at his side in an anxiety-filled vigil, trying to quell my mounting fears. His flesh was heated, his hands curling into claws as his head thrashed on the pillows. As I covered Henry once again with the disordered bed linens, all I could see was a man driven beyond endurance by some monstrous assault.

He is strong. He will overcome this.

Henry cried out, shouting in anguish, as if wounded or facing an enemy on the battlefield.

My heart sore, I kissed his cheek, smoothed back his matted hair and wept.

The next morning, somewhat restored, although still ice pale, Henry went to Vincennes with his army, taking John and James with him. I sent to London for his doctor, who arrived and waited with me. We both waited, with my mad father and my ever-complaining mother for company, through the long, hot month of August. All I knew was that Henry was still at Vincennes, and that I had never found time to talk to him about the injustice of Madam Joanna. But I would when I saw him again.

I prayed. The beads, carved ivory and jet, clicked through my fingers in perpetual petition that the Blessed Virgin would watch over my husband and restore him to health.

When Lord John was announced in the solar of the old palace where I sat with my mother and the handful of damsels who had accompanied me, the silence between us—for what had we to say to each other?—masked by a lute player, I sprang to my feet, delighted to see a familiar face, abandoning my needlework to Beatrice’s care. John would have news of the campaign and perhaps a message from Henry. He would also have some conversation to while away even an hour of my time. He came to an abrupt halt just within the door, pushing gauntlets and helm into the hands of the surprised servant who had announced him.

‘John.’ I approached with hands outstretched in welcome, my heart light. ‘What brings you? And James too.’

For there behind him, similarly clad in a metal-riveted brigandine, gripping gloves and sword, was James Stewart.

‘My lady.’ John bowed to me, and to my mother. James’s inclination of the head was cursory in the extreme.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘We didn’t expect you. Is the battle at Cosne won?’

‘No, my lady. The battle has not been fought,’ John replied, lips stiff, voice raw.

It seemed to me that there could be only one reason. ‘Has my brother then surrendered?’ But a sudden touch of apprehension prickled over my skin. How formal he was. But perhaps it was simply the presence of my mother that had made him circumspect. It was hard to read anything from the dust-engraved lines on his face, unless it was weariness from the journey.

‘No, no.’ Lord John hesitated. ‘The Dauphin has withdrawn from the siege. There will be no battle.’

‘Then what…?’

‘I am here…’ As he stepped forward into an angled shaft of light from the high window, I saw that his face was a graven mask, imprinted with far more than weariness. ‘It is the King, my lady. The King.’

What was this? I frowned at the unaccustomed formality. ‘Henry—has he then recovered? Do I go to join him?’

‘No, my lady. Not that.’

Dark dread began to close around my heart, but I clung to what I knew must be the truth. Henry would control the situation, the reins firmly in his hand, as skilfully as a knight would direct his mount when riding in the lists. How could the news be bad if both sides had withdrawn from battle? ‘Does he come here, then, to Senlis?’ I asked.

John drew in a breath. ‘No…’

The sense of terror, dark and bottomless, began to grip harder, so hard that I could barely take a breath. ‘What is it, John?’ I whispered with a terrible premonition. ‘James?’ I glanced at the silent King of Scotland. ‘Will you not tell me?’

James looked away.

‘Have pity,’ I whispered.

It was John who told me in the end. ‘Henry is dead.’

The words dropped like a handful of pebbles, cast to clatter onto the floor in an empty room. I looked up, away from John, my attention caught, as if I had missed something. Perhaps a bird flown in through the open window to flutter and cheep in panic. Or a murmur of gossip from the damsels. Or Thomas entering with a platter of wine and sweetmeats. Or even my father, come to discover where in France he actually was.

No bird. No conversation. No page or father. No sound except for an echoing silence. Every detail of that room seemed to be fine etched in my mind. My mother was staring at me, her embroidery abandoned in her lap. My damsels seemed frozen in time and space, silent and still as carved statues.

Inconsequentially I marked that the lute player had stopped playing and was looking at me, open-mouthed. That John’s boots and clothing were mud-spattered, that James’s hair, curled on his neck, was matted and sweat-streaked. They must have ridden hard and fast. How strange that they had not sent a courier to tell me about this vital matter that had brought them hotfoot from Vincennes to Senlis…But—I shook my head, trying to release my thoughts from some muffling cloud.

What was it that John had just said?

‘I’m sorry. I don’t…’ I heard myself murmur.

‘Henry is dead,’ John repeated. ‘He died two days ago. I am here to tell you, Katherine. I thought it was my duty to come in person.’

Duty! All was black. My sight, my mind. These words, so gently spoken by a man whom I would call friend, could not be true. Was it a lie? Had it been said to deliberately cause me hurt? My mind shimmered, unable to latch onto the meaning of those three words.

Henry is dead.

‘No.’

Although my lips formed it, I could not even speak the denial. The floor moved under my feet, seeming to lurch towards me as my sight darkened, sparkling with iridescent points of light, jewel bright, that all but blinded me. I felt my knees weakening and stretched out for something solid to catch hold of…And as I felt John clasp my arm, in a rush of silk damask my mother was at my side, catching hold of me with her nails digging into my hand, her voice as harsh as that of a crow’s warning in my ear.

‘Katherine!’

I heard a mew of pain—my own voice.

‘You will not faint,’ my mother muttered. ‘You will not show weakness. Stand up straight, daughter, and face this.’

Face what? Henry is dead. It couldn’t be.

A cup of wine was pushed into my hand by Thomas, but I did not drink, even though my throat felt as raw as if it was full of sand. Unheeded, my fingers opening numbly, the cup fell to the floor and liquid splashed over my skirts.

‘Katherine! Show the courage of your Valois blood!’

And at last, at my mother’s command, I drew myself up and forced my mind to work.

‘Two days ago,’ I heard myself say, slowly. ‘Two days.’

Why had I not known? Why had I not felt some powerful essence leach out of this world when so great a soul left it? What had I been doing two days ago? I frowned as I tried to recall. I had ridden into the forest of Chantilly with a group of my mother’s courtiers. I had visited my father, who did not know my name. My mother had bemoaned the quality of my embroidery. I had done all of that and felt no sense that Henry was dead, that Henry’s soul, at some point in those meaningless events, had departed from his body…

How could he? He was young. In military skill he surpassed all others. Had it been an ambush? A chance attack that had gone wrong?

‘Was it in battle?’ I asked. But surely John had said that there was no battle. I must have misunderstood. ‘Did he lead the army against Cosne after all?’

‘No. It was not a wound,’ John explained, relieved to be asked something that he could answer. ‘He was struck down with dire symptoms. The bloody flux, we think. A soldier’s disease—but far more virulent than most.’

‘Oh.’ I could not take it in, that he was dead of some common ailment. My magnificent husband cut down by the soldiers’ flux.

‘For the last three weeks he could barely rise from his bed,’ John continued to explain in flat tones that expressed nothing of the agony Henry must have suffered. Or the anxieties of his captains.

‘I sent for a new doctor from England,’ I said. ‘Henry said that he should wait here. I should have sent him to Vincennes…’

‘I doubt he could have reversed the illness,’ John soothed. ‘He was failing for three weeks. You must not blame yourself.’

The words swirled around me, pecking at my mind like a flock of insistent chickens. This made no sense. Three weeks!

‘He could barely ride when he left here—he was too weak in spite of his insistence,’ John continued. ‘We travelled to Vincennes by river in the end, which was easier. Henry tried to ride the final miles into camp but it could not be.’ John passed his tongue over dry lips. ‘He was carried the last distance in a litter.’

‘And that was three weeks ago.’

‘Yes, my lady. On the tenth day of August. He did not leave his bed again.’

But…it made no sense. He had been so ill that he could not ride a horse for three weeks? For a moment I closed my eyes against what I now understood…Then opened them and fixed John with a stare, for I must know the truth and I would not allow him to dissemble.

‘My husband was bedridden for three weeks.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who was with him? At the end?’

‘I was. His uncle Exeter. Warwick. His captains. James, of course.’ His eyes slid from mine. Dear John. He knew exactly what I was asking. ‘I think there might have been other members of his council, and of course his household. I forget…’

‘And what did you speak of?’

‘What use is this?’ my mother demanded, still at my side, her hand still gripping mine. ‘What use to know what he said? I swear it will give you no comfort.’

I shook her off, stepping to stand alone with a bleak resolve. ‘I need to know. What did you discuss in all those three weeks, John?’

‘Matters of state. Government affairs, of course. The direction of the war…’

‘I see.’

Henry’s brother, his uncle, his friend and captains had all been summoned to his side, but not his wife. They had discussed matters of state, but nothing as personal as the ignorance of a wife who had not been invited to attend her husband’s deathbed. His wife, who could have made the journey within two days if she had been informed. Emotion throbbed behind my eyes: shock that a man who had seemed untouchable should live no more; anger that I should be the last to know.

‘Did he speak of me at the end?’ I asked, my voice perfectly controlled, knowing the answer by now. ‘Did he talk of me or of his son?’

‘Of his son, yes. It was imperative to consider the position of the new king.’ John’s eyes were full of misery as his gaze met mine. I admired his courage to deliver that blow so honestly. I needed honesty beyond anything else.

‘It was not imperative to consider my position. He did not talk of me,’ I stated.

‘No, my lady. Not of you.’

I took a breath against the dark shadows that hovered. ‘What did Henry say at the very end? Did he know he was dying?’

‘Yes. He said that he wished he could have rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. He begged forgiveness for his sins. He said that he had wronged Madam Joanna.’ John smiled grimly. ‘He has released her. You will be relieved to hear that, I know. She never deserved her imprisonment.’

I laughed harshly, mirthlessly. At least he had remembered Madam Joanna.

‘That was all he said, until he committed his soul to Christ’s care.’ John took my hand. ‘Forgive me, Katherine. There was no easy way to deliver this catastrophic news. I cannot imagine your grief. If there is more I can tell you…’

There was really nothing more to ask. Nothing more for me to say. But I did, because the dark clouds were rent and the true horror had struck home.

‘Why did he not tell me that he was near death? Why did he not send for me?’

It was a cry of anguish.

Shamed, because there was no answer that could be made, I covered my mouth with my shaking hands. And walked from the room.

I did not weep. I could not sit, could not lie down on my bed. I stood in the centre of the floor in my chamber and let the realisation wash over me as the sun covered me with its warm blessing from head to foot. I did not feel it. I was shocked to ice, blood sluggish, my heart nothing more than a lump of frozen matter. How could the sun be so warm on my skin when all feeling, all life seemed to have drained from me?

Eventually I discovered that I was sitting on the floor, staring at the barred pattern made by the light and shadow on the tiles. Bars, such as those making a prison cell of a well-furnished room. But now the bars for me were open and for the first time since I had stood before the altar at Troyes I allowed myself to see the truth in all its rawness. I could pretend, I could hope no longer. Henry’s death had written it plain.

My life with Henry had been built on a swamp, all its footings unsure except for the legal binding in the eyes of the church. I had worshipped him, been blinded by him, made excuses for his neglect.

And had he not drawn me into the mirage? He had treated me with such chivalric respect when we had first met and he had wanted to woo my consent—not that he had needed it—but perhaps it had pleased him to acquire a besotted bride. Henry had enjoyed being lauded on all sides, and requiring unquestioning obedience had been part and parcel of his life.

My mind ranged over the times when I had been an encumbrance or, even worse, a person of no real importance to him. No, he had not been cruel, I admitted with painful honesty, he simply had not seen the need to consider me as part of his life. I had never been part of his life. It had been John who had sent me the portrait, James who had kept me company during the sieges of my honeymoon and played Henry’s harp with me.

What need to tell his wife of any change of plan? Why tell her that his brother was dead in battle? And as soon as my body had co-operated with the promise of a child, he had abandoned me for the demands of the battlefield. Oh, I knew his commitment to England had been strong, and had he not had a God-anointed duty to his country as King? But did he have to leave me for a year of our young marriage?

And I, not guiltless in this, had been too immature to forge a relationship with him. I had been obedient and subservient, I had never forced him to notice me as Katherine because I had not known how. I had never dared call him Hal, as his brothers had. And now all my chances to build a loving marriage with Henry were destroyed.

Perhaps there had never been any real chances.

A howl was rent from me, hot with fury and grief. I swept my lute from coffer to floor, the strings twanging in complaint. I dragged the curtains of the bed closed. He would never lie there again with me.

How could this be? How could I have fooled myself for so long? His family, his captains, his confessor all summoned to his bedside. But not me.

And at last true horror laid its vicious hand on me, and the degradation, for I had not been ousted from his affections by another woman, or even by another man. Or even by a cold and distant duty laid down by God. War and conquest and English glory had proved to be a demanding mistress, against whose enchantment I had never been able to compete. At last I sat and wept, my infatuation for Henry as dead as his earthly remains, my body an empty shell.

Saddest of all, Henry had never even set eyes on the son he had so desired.

All the structure of my life lay in pieces, the pattern of my life as Henry’s wife and Queen of England.

What was expected of me now?

‘Do I go to him at Vincennes?’ I asked John next morning. Surely I could make this decision for myself. Of course I would go. As my last office to him as his wife, I would kneel beside his coffin and pray for his departed soul.

‘No,’ John replied. ‘They will have already begun the journey back to England. I advise you to make your way to Rouen.’ I had found him in the entrance hall, already dressed to leave, shrugging into a heavy jerkin, pulling on his gauntlets, outside in the courtyard, his horses and entourage already drawn up. ‘I’ll leave James here. He’ll escort you when you’re ready.’

So I would go to Rouen. The customary flutter of apprehension that attacked me when all was not clear was beating against my temples, warning me of imminent pain. I realised that I had not even asked John what provision had been made for me on my return to England. I had no idea what would be expected of me there.

‘What will I do?’ I asked Isabeau in despair. My mother was already making her way towards the chapel for her daily petitioning of the Almighty, but she turned and considered, head tilted, a little smile on her mouth.

‘Do you not know? You are more important now, Katherine, than you ever were before the English King’s death. Are you not the living, breathing symbol of all that was agreed between Henry and your father?’ She sneered. ‘They’ll put you on a pedestal, place a halo around your head and clothe you in cloth of gold. Glorious motherhood personified.’

Her brutal cynicism horrified me. ‘I can’t…’

‘Of course you can.’ A sour twist of her mouth, wrecking the smile, coated Isabeau’s words in disdain. ‘What is your alternative? Better that than to be driven to return here to France, to live out your days in penury in company with a bitter, aging woman and a witless man.’

It shook me into a terrible reality I could not envisage.

As advised—or instructed—by Lord John, and accompanied by a silent James, for once robbed of all his high spirits, I travelled to Rouen. I was there, in the position prepared for me at the door of the great cathedral, when the remains of King Henry of England arrived.

I watched the scene unfold, all in sharp detail but as if at a great distance from me. The vast doors had been opened wide to receive the procession. It was truly magnificent: a mighty host of mourners. If I had not realised before the honour in which Henry of Lancaster was held in Normandy, I did now. Bells tolled, clergy chanted, while beneath it all simmered a dark and doleful sense of doom as a carriage drawn by four burnished black horses came to a halt.

A canopy of rich silk was held aloft. Behind it they came, John of Bedford, James of Scotland, the Earl of Warwick, all the English lords and royal household who had been there at my husband’s death, sombre in black. They bowed to me as they approached and stopped.

I walked forward, my limbs stiff, to where the bier lay draped in black silk. My errant heart, lodged in my throat, beat louder still. For upon it there was an effigy, a more than life-sized effigy, of Henry, fashioned in leather. I took in the details of it as if it were Henry himself, clad in royal robes, furnished with crown, gold sceptre and orb.

Slowly I placed my hand on the arm, as if it might be a living body. It was warm from the sun, but rigid and unresponsive. How could this stiff facsimile contain all Henry’s exuberant life-force? The austere features would never again warm into a smile that could pierce my heart as it had in that long-distant pavilion, with the hound and the hunting cat, at Meulan. How strange that now I was free to touch him without redress—except that this creature was not real.

‘Is he…?’ I tried to ask. How ignominious it would have been for him if he had been dismembered as the dead sometimes were. His pride could not have tolerated it. ‘Is he…?’ I could not think of the words to ask.

John came to my rescue. ‘Henry has been embalmed. He was very emaciated at the end. And it is a long journey.’

Of course. His body would have been packed with herbs against putrefaction, but still my mind could not encompass it. All that life snuffed out. Too young, too young. And as the procession passed by into the dark interior, there was James of Scotland at my side, as he had been for the whole of that terrible journey from Senlis.

‘Are you strong?’ he asked, closing a hand around my arm. I must have looked on the brink of collapse. I could not remember when I had last slept through a night.

‘Yes,’ I said, my eyes following the preserved remains of my husband.

‘When did you last eat?’

‘I don’t recall.’

‘It will be all right, you know.’ He stumbled a little over the words. ‘I know what it is to live in a foreign country—without friends and family.’

‘I know.’ The cortege had now made its ponderous way into the cathedral where Henry’s body would lie in state.

‘You will return with us to England?’

I did not think I had a choice. I raised my head and watched the effigy still moving away from me into the shadowed depths, until a bright beam of light illuminated it with colour from one of the windows, and for that brief moment the effigy was banded majestically in red and blue and gold. It woke me from my frozen state and with it came an inner knowledge of what I must do.

‘I was his wife. I am the mother of his son, the new king. I will make his return to England spectacular because that is what he would have wanted.’

James’s hand was warm on my cold one. I could not recall when I had last been touched with such kindness, and I said it to him because I could say it to no one else.

‘Henry did not think of me, but I will think of him. Is it not the duty of a wife towards her husband in death as in life? I will carry out his last wishes—whatever they are—because that is what he would have expected of me. I will do it. I will come home to England. Home to my baby son, who is now King of England.’

‘You are a brave woman.’

I turned my head and looked directly at James, seeing a depth of compassion in his face as I remembered John expressing similar sentiments. How wrong they were. I was not brave at all. ‘Why could he not have loved me?’ I asked. ‘Am I so unlovable?’

It came unbidden to my lips, and I expected no answer but, surprising me, James replied. ‘I don’t know how Henry’s mind worked. He was driven by duty and God’s will for England.’ He hitched a shoulder. ‘No one held centre place in his life. It’s not that he could not love you. I doubt he could love anyone.’ His smile was a little awry. ‘If I did not love Joan, I would love you.’

It was an easy response, and one he had made before, but it struck at my heart. And I wept at last under the arch of the cathedral door, tears washing unhindered down my cheeks. I wept for Henry, who had not lived to see his visions fulfilled, and for myself and all my silly shattered dreams: the young girl who had fallen in love with the hero of England, who had wooed her as a political necessity.

‘My lady.’ Made uneasy by my tears, James handed me a piece of linen. ‘Don’t distress yourself.’

‘How can I not? I am French. Without Henry, I will be the enemy.’

‘So am I the enemy. We will weather it together.’

‘Thank you,’ I murmured. I wiped my tears and lifted my head as I followed my husband’s body into the hallowed darkness. All I wanted was to be at Windsor with my son.

When we buried Henry in Westminster Abbey, I gave him everything he rejected from me in life: all the care and attention that a wife could lavish on her husband. Henry had arranged it all, of course—how could I ever think I would be given a free hand?—but I paid for it out of my own dower, and I watched the implementation of his wishes with a cold heart as I led the mourners in procession to the Abbey, with James at my side, Lord John behind.

I arranged that Henry’s three favourite chargers should be led up to the altar. I considered that he would be more gratified with their presence than with mine.

Henry had put in place a plan for a tomb and chantry chapel in the very centre of the Abbey. So be it. I arranged for the workmen and paid their wages for the very best work they could achieve. No worshipper in the Abbey would ever be able to ignore Henry’s pre-eminence in death as in life.

I also took the effigy in hand: carved in solid English oak, plated with silver gilt, head and hands in solid silver. And above this magnificent representation were hung his most treasured earthly possessions. His shield and saddle and helmet. Trappings of war.

Completed at last, gleaming as it did with dull magnificence in the light from hundreds of candles, I stood beside the remarkable resemblance of his effigy. I placed my hand on his cheek then on his chest, where once his heart beat. The heart beneath my hand was still, stone-like in its oaken carcase, but mine shivered within the cage of my ribs.

‘I am sorry, my lord. I am sorry that I could not mean more to you. Your heart never beat for me—but I vow that I will raise your son to be the most powerful king that England has ever seen.’

It was all I could do for him, and I would not be found wanting in this.

Then, distressingly, clearly into my mind came Madam Joanna’s memory of the old prophecy:

Henry born at Monmouth shall small time reign and much get.

The accuracy of the old wisewoman’s reading of Henry’s lifespan took my breath. So short a life, so great an achievement. But would her further insight come to pass also?

Henry born at Windsor shall long reign and all lose.

What a terrible burden this placed on me, for was I not helpless to alter the course of such predestined events? But my protectiveness towards my son was reborn with even greater fervency. I would protect him and guide him and pray to God that his reign would be as glorious as his father’s. As the whole country mourned the passing of its acclaimed King, I decided that that must be the course of my life, to protect and nurture. And I banished the unsettling prophecy from my thoughts. I would simply not let it happen.