Queen by Right (24 page)

Cecily gently pulled his hands from his face and made him look at her. “Ah, Dickon. Such pain you have held inside you these fifteen years, ’tis no wonder it consumes you. Forgive me, my love, I childishly never thought of your suffering, of your fear. You always appear so sure, so strong, and yet so very amiable.”

He smiled at her. “Is that how I am perceived? Then I have succeeded in my intent.” He paused, weighing his words carefully, hoping she would not find them childish. “I made a pact with God many years ago that if I conducted myself with civility to all men, He would protect me from their suspicion. I confess it has been hard at times to hold my peace. There is another side of me that is aching to emerge.”

Cecily frowned. “Another side? Do not tell me the Richard I love has treasonous thoughts?”

“Nay, I know my duty to my king. But I want to be recognized as being as high born as the king himself, even though I have no intention of challenging him for his crown. I am content to be his liegeman . . .
but
I am also his royal cousin. Do you understand, Cis?” He had paced away during this declaration and now swung around to face her, his anguish evident.

“With all my heart, Dickon,” she replied, rising. Wrapping her arms around him, she snuggled into the soft folds of his worsted tunic, breathing in his familiar smell. “If there is anything I can do to help you achieve this balance, you know I will. Did we, too, not have a pact to share our dreams and aspirations?” She fingered the ruby ring. “Remember, your hopes and ambitions are mine, my love.”

Richard squeezed her tightly, struck by his wife’s sudden maturity. Somewhere along the road to Rouen, he thought, Cecily had left her childhood behind.

“I pray you will say nothing of this to your mother or your sisters. Especially the thoughts I have of your uncle the cardinal.”

“Why would I?” Cecily replied, indignant. “I am your wife and confidante, and you can trust me with your secrets. Besides, I do not like my uncle Beaufort either.”

Richard laughed then, his burden lighter, and he kissed her tenderly. “Never forget how to make me laugh, my dearest, and love me always as I shall love you.”

He picked up his bonnet and crammed it on his head, the ostrich feather fluttering in the late-afternoon breeze. A look of tenderness suffused his face as he told her, “’Twas providence made me your father’s ward. I cherish your devotion.” Then he bent down to kiss her and whispered, “No sign of a child yet, Cis? Nay? Then we shall simply have to try harder.” He kissed her again and made his way back to his horse, which was champing on the orchard grass, and rode off with a wave of his blue bonnet.

Cecily sank down on the grassy exedra, suddenly feeling tired. Taking on another’s suffering was new to her, and she could hardly bear the weight of it. And yet there was a singing in her heart that her husband trusted her so completely.

She rose from the grassy seat pondering Richard’s last question and resolved to visit the abbey church of St. Ouen the next day to ask the Virgin to intercede with her Son for the gift of a child. Perhaps fatherhood might ease Richard’s troubled thoughts of his own father’s betrayal.

“I
WAS TOLD
I could find the two most beautiful ladies in Rouen here.” John of Bedford’s voice startled Cecily and Duchess Anne not long after Martinmas. They made quite a picture, he mused: tiny French Anne with her creamy skin, dark hair and eyes, and the tall, lithe English rose whose fair beauty was the talk of Rouen. “What are you gossiping about today, your graces?” he teased as he kissed his wife’s upturned face. It did not seem to matter to the duke that Anne had remained barren. The love he bore her was evident every time he looked at her.

“Monseigneur, fais attention, je t’empris!
Do not creep up on us thus,” Anne chastised him, petting the exuberant wolf-hound that never left John’s side. Then she fluttered her long lashes at him. “It may be one day you will hear something that does not flatter you.”

“
Tiens,
Anne, you flatter him by even suggesting he was the subject of our conversation,” Cecily ventured, her boldness surprising even herself: Duke John’s presence often awed her. “Today it so happens that we were talking of Anne’s wish to go hunting,
n’est-ce pas, madame?
”

Anne’s eyes widened in surprise. “Were we, Cecily?” she said before she could stop herself. And then she smiled. “
Mais bien sûr,
that is what we were
wishing.
Alors,
your grace,” she cajoled her husband, “may we? You say the French are many leagues from us now, and La Pucelle is safe within the dungeon at Beaurevoir, the other side of Normandy. What danger is there for us to hunt near St. Catherine’s Mount?” She turned to look toward the city wall where the high hill was just visible over the top. “’Tis the best place to hunt, and we can eat out in the fresh air. Can you not persuade the king to allow it? After all, the huntsmen go out often to put food on the king’s table and have never been attacked.”

Bedford’s blue eyes twinkled over his high-bridged beak of a nose, and he nodded. He had easily seen through Cecily’s dissembling but thought it harmless enough. “In truth, there is no danger and thus no reason why we should not have some sport. How can I resist two such charming ladies?”

Cecily beamed at him, and not for the first time did he envy young York his bride, although his
petite passereau
delighted him in every way.

“Merci, monseigneur,”
the little sparrow said, raising his hand to her cheek. “You work too hard and you look tired. You must take a day to think of nothing but the pleasures of the hunt. No talk of war or even La Pucelle, do you promise me?”

Bedford’s expression darkened. “Forgive me,
ma mie,
but in the matter of the Maid, you may know that we are attempting to buy her from Burgundy.”

Although intent upon gleaning any new snippet of information about Jeanne, Cecily could not help casting her mind back to a talk with Richard and how angry she had been when he had told her that the bishop of the Beaurevoir diocese, Pierre Cauchon, was negotiating the sale of the difficult prisoner to the English. Upon hearing that Jeanne was now chained to her bed for attempting an escape, Cecily had even declared, “His name should be
cochon,
not Cauchon, for he must be a pig to treat a poor girl thus.”

“
Tiens,
milord. Her grace of York is distressed by the story. I beg of you, if it be your wish, may we not talk of other things?” Cecily looked up when she heard Anne mention her name.

John, duke of Bedford, eyed Cecily with interest, wondering what in the good news concerning Jeanne d’Arc had distressed her. He had grown to admire this spirited young duchess and was often torn between amusement and disapproval at her enthusiasm for entering into delicate political conversations, in which, he was convinced, women did not belong. His beloved Anne had marked well the words of the Goodman of Paris, whose written homily to his new young wife at the end of the last century had been copied for many
high-born nobles to present to their own wives. Indeed, Bedford had given it to Anne at the time of their wedding, and he resolved to make young Richard of York aware of it—especially in the matter of a wife’s duty.

. . . that you shall be humble and obedient towards him that shall be your husband, the which article containeth in itself four particulars. The first particular saith that you shall be obedient to wit to him and to his commandments whatsoe’er they be, whether they be made in earnest or in jest, or whether they be orders to do strange things, or whether they be made concerning matters of small import or of great; for all things should be of great import to you, since he that shall be your husband hath bidden you to do them . . .

Aye, Cecily could use some advice in the matter of wifely obedience, he thought, even though he admitted he was taken with the comely young woman. Bedford was not to know that Anne had already pressed the book on Cecily, who, on one occasion while reading alone in her chamber, had pitched the leather-bound volume across the room in disgust.

The Goodman wrote:

The fourth particular is that you be not arrogant and that you answer not back your husband that shall be, nor his words, nor contradict what he saith, above all before other people.

“A pox on the Goodman,” Cecily had muttered. “He needs a good dose of the wise Wife of Bath.” She had smiled to herself as she recalled the Wife’s final prayer:

And—Jesu hear my prayer!—cut short the lives
Of those who won’t be governed by their wives;
And all old, angry niggards of their pence,
God send them soon a very pestilence!

10
Normandy, Winter to Spring 1431

T
en thousand francs was what it took to transfer custody of Jeanne d’Arc to the English, and on Christmas Day in the tenth year of Henry’s reign, the young peasant woman from Domrémy was finally brought in chains to Rouen and imprisoned in the high donjon of Bouvreuil Castle. While the English king’s court made merry that Yuletide season, a few corridors away the hope of the French languished in a dank cell behind thick stone walls. There she awaited trial by those French clergy loyal to Henry.

Cecily had learned she was virtually alone among the nobles and their wives in her sympathy for the young woman. After a few months of living with Duke John, she began to see the truth of Queen Catherine’s advice to her those few years ago. The ladies were not expected to show knowledge of the discussions that went on among the men. But Cecily noticed that many women eavesdropped, as she did. She wondered how many of them also talked to their lords in moments of intimacy, as she was wont to do with Richard. Their snatched time together, however, was so precious that much of it was taken with releasing pent-up passion.

Every now and again, she could cajole Richard into divulging what was happening with Jeanne. He had told her that the Maid had been moved from stronghold to stronghold once she was sold and that the English had indeed treated her more kindly than the Burgundians, which fact was a small comfort to Cecily. They had allowed her to attend Mass presided over by another French prisoner, a bishop, Richard had said. “But she still refuses to remove her men’s clothing.”

“Oh, pish,” Cecily responded, and yet she was instantly transported back to the scene with her father before his death and refrained from saying more.
She was grateful Richard had not reminded her of it, though she was certain he was recalling the same event.

“Jeanne’s sin is that she swears God made her do it,” Richard went on, “which contradicts His word in the Bible. ’Tis a piece of evidence that will be used against her, can you not see? ’Tis heresy,” he had ended.

Two weeks had gone by following that conversation with no word on the notable prisoner in the donjon, and so, on a snowy mid-January day, Cecily chose a sweet afternoon of lovemaking in Richard’s fire-lit room at the castle to ask him for more information.

“Why are you so preoccupied with her?” he asked a touch resentfully, nuzzling the milky skin between her breasts. He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow while she playfully fingered new silky hairs on his chest. “How can you think of her at a time like this, Cis? In truth, it makes me wonder if your mind was on our lovemaking at all.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “How can you doubt that? I was pleasured as much as you, I dare say, and you know it. But now, Richard, I beg of you, indulge me.”

Ever since their pivotal conversation in the Chantereine orchard, Cecily had ceased to call Richard by his nickname. It was as though they had moved from their first innocent love to a more mature relationship, and both were aware of a deepening of their affections.

Now, having so enjoyed his wife’s attention that afternoon, Richard found he was unable to resist Cecily’s thirst for information about Jeanne.

“Very well, my inquisitive wife, I will give in. I know she will be tried soon,” he revealed, sitting up and stretching. “In fact Pierre Cauchon is here. It is said he will preside over the first tribunal in a few days. It seems he has temporarily assumed the title of bishop of Rouen since the old bishop moved on last year. This means he can conduct the trial here, which is a safer place for it than Paris.”

Cecily frowned, cupping her hands behind her head on the pillow. “Cauchon? Why is Duke John not presiding? Why is the church involved at all? Is she not a prisoner of war?”

Richard gave a sigh. “I regret to tell you, my innocent, that were she simply a prisoner of war, she would not need to be tried at all. She could be ransomed or kept indefinitely—until the war ends, I suppose.” He grunted then. “It has been the source of much talk in the council chamber. Why has the French king, who owes his crown and his recent successes to the Maid, not attempted
to rescue or buy her? It seems he has abandoned her to her fate, and for that reason I have some sympathy for her. It is now a matter for an ecclesiastical court as,” he lowered his voice, crossing himself, “she will be tried for heresy.”