The Queen's Lover (73 page)

Matter-of-factly, she added: "Move that cushion, there's a good girl," and, when Catherine failed to move, said, more sharply, "that one there; under your hand; put it behind me, here. I can hardly see you. You're giving me neck-ache."

Once she was settled so she could look straight into Catherine's eyes, she reached out an arm packed with sagging flesh and patted her daughter's cold, unresponsive hand. "Don't
look so worried," she said. "Put it out of your mind; forget all the fairy tales. You're too old for fairy tales. But not for living. That's what matters. Get on with that."

Catherine's head was spinning. "I don't understand," she said.

Isabeau looked patiently at her. "It's simple enough," she replied. "All you need to do is make sure you bring that boy of yours up right--so he's happy and strong and right-minded and honest--and so he loves you as much as you love him--and you'll have nothing to reproach yourself with." She nodded, and the laughter went out of her. Her face settled into lines of sadness. "It's the greatest thing there is, love for your children," she added. "When it goes wrong, you never for give yourself...it's an endless sorrow."

Catherine realized, with a jolt of emotion she couldn't name, that she'd never asked what her mother had felt about being imprisoned by Charles, or hated by Louis and Jean, come to that. She'd just assumed: angry, vengeful. But why had she never asked?

"When it's right, it's a joy," Isabeau's voice went on. "You'll do anything for your child, anything. The only time I ever really fought for what I loved was over you...when I said"--she twisted her lips--"
that
...put aside my son...destroyed my reputation...so we could get your Henry back to the table for you." She sighed. Then she brightened. She patted Catherine's hand again. She said, in a stronger voice: "It was worth it. Sacrifices don't matter for a child you love."

Catherine felt dizzy still. This was so different from what she'd expected and hoped for. And yet, she suddenly realized, it was enough. Very softly, she put both hands on her mother's shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed one crumpled cheek.

"Thank you," she whispered.

They stayed like that for a moment, one flesh again, with no more need for words. Then Isabeau said, "Which reminds me...where's my grandson? He's had long enough out looking for lions with that handsome tutor of his. I spotted you out of the window earlier on...sent Anastaise down. I wanted to see
you first. But we're ready now, aren't we?" She patted her nightcap. There was a hungry look on her old face. "Bring him up."

"I didn't expect Harry to enjoy himself so much," Owain said.

"My mother loved him, didn't she?" Catherine agreed softly. The light was failing. The Louvre was coming up ahead. Harry was trotting in front of them. She'd been quiet all the way back, but Owain thought she looked happy.

Owain said: "He's so much better now Warwick's not here." He wanted to jolt her into conversation. She didn't respond. He pursued the subject. "Don't you think? He's confident. Interested in what's around him. You should tell Duke John. Or the Cardinal. He'll have noticed the change, all right. Have them ask Duke Humphrey to keep Warwick away. Keep him at the war, maybe. He'd be happy enough in France, fighting. And it would make your life easier once you get back to England. Both your lives. You'll need to protect yourself. Warwick will never be your friend. It would be easier for you both if Warwick wasn't there."

He could hear the anxious note in his voice; the tightness. But she didn't seem to respond to it. "Yes," she said absentmindedly. But he could see she wasn't really taking in what he said.

He thought: She's sinking into lethargy; it's as if nothing matters to her anymore. Tensely he added: "Fight; you'll have to fight for what you want, and it's a good moment. You just might be able to get him out of Harry's life if you try now..." But she only turned up the corners of her mouth and looked weary, as though she was done with fighting; as though it was too much effort.

For a moment, though, looking at Owain, she suddenly flickered into life. "Perhaps
you
could be appointed in his place..." she said, with a kind of weak hope.

Unable to keep the impatience out of his voice altogether at having to explain this again, he said: "No. That will never happen. I'm Welsh. I'm not important enough. And I'll be gone soon. You know that. Don't waste a thought on it."

Her mouth went slack again.

More gently, he added, "What did your mother say about what was troubling you--about Charles' blood and yours?"

She just shook her head. "The same as you did," she said. "That blood doesn't matter as much as love."

He waited. She was thinking; he could see she was troubled.

"I believed her," she said. But he could hear doubt coming back. Then her face puckered.

"If nothing matters, and royalty is only a game, it all seems so wasteful," she whispered, so he could hardly hear. "Why are we fighting at all? Why did Jehanne have to die? What is the point of any of the things we plan and hope for and fight for?"

Harry wasn't looking. He was a couple of lengths ahead, staring round at the city. Owain stretched out a hand, found hers; held it tight over the horses' ambling. "There's you and me in the darkness, at least," Owain said, and he felt a flicker of answering pressure in her hand. "You're everything--more important than blood or beauty. Isn't that enough?"

But whatever Owain said, he couldn't find the peace of mind he needed, to stop trying to fight for Catherine, in that future he would have no part in. Later he went to see Duke John and, explaining that he was there on behalf of the Queen Mother, requested that the Earl of Warwick be moved on from Harry's household.

"Why?" asked Duke John with interest.

Owain thought: It's better I ask him; he'll be able to be franker with me; he's better with men than with women. "Warwick was Duke Humphrey's appointment--and he's always been more interested in the war than in child-rearing," he replied promptly.

The Duke only looked skeptical, as though this wasn't enough reason to meddle with the order of things; as though it wasn't a worthy fight to choose against his brother.

What have I got to lose? Owain thought, and went on, "...and the child is terrified of the beatings."

He was pleased to see Duke John look thoughtful at that, and hear him say: "I've heard this before. About Warwick and beatings." He was also pleased that, when Warwick arrived in Paris for the coronation a couple of weeks later, Duke John didn't put him up at the Louvre with the other English guests. Tactfully, he
drew Owain aside and said, "I thought Warwick--better at the palace, away from it all, until after the ceremony, eh? Wouldn't want to put the boy off his stride."

The Earl and his troop of a hundred men were given quarters at the palace with the French guests. They wouldn't even meet the King's party until after the ceremony.

THIRTY-SIX

The coronation--in the end an exact replica of the English one--took place on Harry's birthday in early December. There were gusts of snow outside on this day, too. Duke John and the Cardinal did their best to deliver loyal French lords from every corner of the land. The Frenchmen stood together, looking uncomfortable at the unfamiliar service. Being mostly from Burgundian France, they had had little to do with the court of Queen Isabeau in her heyday. Those who had been courtiers under her kept their distance too; perhaps they were embarrassed that they'd left her alone all these years in her crumbling house. The old lady, wrapped up in furs and allowed to sit through the ceremony due to her advanced age, didn't seem to care. She watched with gusto; sucking on sticky titbits she pulled up, from time to time, from the depths of her pockets.

The English group stood to one side. Warwick kept well away from Catherine. He stood somberly apart from the other English lords, too, throughout the hours of prayer and crowning, with his troop of knights behind him. He held a candle in the glittery gloom. Every now and then, Owain felt a prickling in his shoulder blades and glanced round, expecting to find the man's hard stare on him; but he never caught Warwick looking.

"This isn't traveling weather...shouldn't we stay in Paris until after Christmas?" Catherine had said the day before as
she, Owain, the Cardinal, and Harry had shared a hurried last meal before going their separate ways.

The Cardinal had agreed. Catherine had thought he looked sorry for her. "No need to hurry home," he'd said kindly.

The departure date they'd set was January 7. Less than a month--weeks; days. She'd clung to Owain that night. He was visualizing the parting, ready to weep and rage at the frustration of it, but she refused to think beyond the night. She'd smiled too brightly and said, "Don't look ahead. Let's be happy now."

There was a dinner after the coronation. Harry and Catherine were permitted to leave after the lords of France and Burgundy and England had filed in fort he first course, and Harry, in his hesitant Englishman's French, had blessed them all.

The child was stumbling and fatigued and shivering by the time he gave the blessing: a little boy again. But an hour later, after a bath and wrapped in a nest of blankets by the fire in his rooms upstairs at the palace, eating a bowl of junket, his cheeks were pink and flushed, and he was grinning in embarrassed delight as his grandmother, from her similar nest of furred blankets by the other side of the fire, told him in her thick Germanic accent, with her ugly old face all lit up with love, "So good! Remembered all the words! That heavy crown!" and leaned forward to pat his damp hair.

That was the scene Owain saw when he entered the little parlor. Seeing Isabeau, he bowed formally and said, "The Cardinal presents his best wishes to Your Majesties. He will be up shortly to offer his congratulations to the newly anointed King of France."

"The charming tutor," Isabeau said, inaccurately but with great warmth. She gave him an arch smile. "Ach, young man, no need for all the ceremony. We've had quite enough speeches today. Come on in, do, out of that draft. Put another log on the fire; it's cold in here. And tell us what we're missing down there at the dinner. I could see the Lord of Albret was desperate for a drink; he was twitching even back in the church...Has he disgraced himself yet? How fat he's got over the years...he was such a handsome young man once, with such
an eye for the ladies. Hard to believe now...though I did hear...Well, I'll tell you about that later," she cackled. "Once these little ears are in bed."

Within moments she'd organized Owain into fetching a stool by the fire for himself, next to Catherine's, who emerged looking tired, having completed her own toilette, in a houppelande of green velvet that reminded him painfully of what she'd been wearing the very first time he'd set eyes on her.

Isabeau was patting Owain on the knee, Catherine saw. The old Queen was telling him, with ferocious flirtatiousness, "You must be a comfort to my daughter; a good, strong, kind young man like you."

Owain looked up at her, and, for all his sadness at what was to come, he had the beginning of a laugh on his lips at what Catherine's mother was saying; he couldn't help it. This was so exactly how Catherine had described her mother. He and Catherine exchanged a quiet look before she smiled too.

Isabeau broke in. "Now, young man," she said chidingly, and the pat to the knee turned into a prod, "hurry off and fetch me some of that monk liqueur, will you? The green one. They say it's good for the digestion."

Bowing, with his lips still twitching, Owain got up.

"Catherine, didn't I see you had some sweets?" the old Queen went on, looking around. "And what about some more junket for the boy...or one of these?"

Before they knew it they were rushing around serving the old woman; puffing up her cushions; fetching footstools. They were laughing at her stories as the air got hotter and hotter and more strongly scented of her thick rose oil; shushing her when she threatened to say something too risque for the little boy's innocent ears.

It was only when the Cardinal appeared, and bowed, and settled to his own merrily malicious conversation with the old Queen--catching her up, for a start, with the antics of the Lord of Albret, who was, as she'd suspected, now very drunk and had insulted both his neighbors before falling asleep at the table--that Harry began to nod off.

"Shh," Catherine said softly, and put her finger to her lips.

For a moment they all gazed at the little boy's pink cheeks and peaceful face. Then, quietly, Owain scooped him up in his arms to carry him next door, where the bed was waiting with a warming pan in it.

Catherine followed on tiptoe with a light. Giving it to Owain, once he'd laid the sleeping child on the bed and put the warming pan on the floor, she carefully tucked her son in and kissed his forehead.

This was the end. She knew that. But she couldn't be as sad as she'd expected to be. Something about the lighthearted little gathering in the next room--something about her mother's mischievous old presence--had raised her spirits.

How happy the Cardinal looked now the coronation was over; how relieved. Whatever Duke Humphrey's accusations about the theft of the crown, they'd have to be put aside once it became clear what foresight the Cardinal had shown. It surely wouldn't count against him, at any rate. They'd deliver back a happy, healthy boy, successfully crowned King of two countries. The Cardinal could end his days at home, at the court of a monarch who loved him. Suddenly more optimistic than she'd felt in a long time, Catherine thought that she too might be somewhere not too far away; that even if Owain immured himself away from her, at least Harry would still want her nearby; not everything would be over. There would be time for sadness. For now she was just thankful that she hadn't been too stubborn over the shape of the coronation; glad she had the friends and allies she did.

She could hear the loud banquet downstairs in full swing. She could hear the quiet sound of more arrivals next door; mutterings. Someone else had arrived to pay respects; perhaps Duke John, but too late. Nothing would wake Harry.