The Forbidden Queen (37 page)

‘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…?’