Читать книгу The Forbidden Queen - Anne O'Brien, Anne O'Brien - Страница 16

He was back. Henry was in London. I knew of his approach to the city even before the cloud of dust from his retinue came in sight of the guards at the gates, since couriers had been arriving for the whole of the previous week, issuing a summons in the King’s name for a Parliament to meet to ratify the Treaty of Troyes. I knew of his arrival at Westminster, where I had already taken up residence, knew of the unpacking and dispersal of his entourage, Henry’s own progress to his private rooms. What I could not hear and deduce from my windows, I ordered Thomas, my page, to discover for me. The King was once more in residence in his capital.

I had a need to speak with him.

‘How did he look?’ I asked, hoping my urgency would extract some specific detail.

‘He was clad in armour and a surcoat with leopards on it,’ Thomas reported with single-minded attention to the accoutrements of his hero, ‘and he wore a jewelled coronet on his helm and a sword at his side.’

‘Is he in good health?’ I asked patiently.

He thought for a moment. ‘Yes, my lady. His horse is very fine too.’

So why was I not waiting for Henry in the courtyard, a Queen to welcome her King? Because I now knew enough of Henry’s preferences to allow him to arrive and settle into his rooms in his own good time, without any distraction, as he brought himself abreast of messages and documents.

I knew, with my newborn cynicism, that I might be awarded at best a cursory bow and a salute to my cheek, at worst a request that I return later in the day. Besides, I wanted my first meeting with him to be alone, not with the whole Court or his military escort as an interested audience.

I waited in my chamber for an hour. He might come to me, to see how I fared, of course. Foolish hope still built like a ball of soft wool in my chest, only to unravel. Another hour passed. I could wait no longer. The excitement that had hummed through my blood for as many weeks as I could count on the fingers of one hand rippled into a warm simmer. It was, I acknowledged with some surprise, as close to happiness as I could expect.

I picked up my skirts and I ran.

I ran along the corridors, as I had once run out into the courtyard on the day after my marriage, my heart sore that Henry was leaving. Now I ran with keen anticipation through the antechambers and reception rooms to the King’s private apartments. The doors were opened for me by a servant who managed to keep his astonishment under control. Obviously queens did not run.

‘Where is the King?’ I demanded of him.

‘In the tapestried chamber, my lady.’

On I went, walking now, catching my breath. Pray God that he was alone. But when I heard the sound of voices beyond the half-open door, irritation, disappointment slowed me. Should I wait? I hesitated, considering the wisdom of postponing this reunion, then knew I could not. I wanted to speak with Henry now. I pushed the door open fully and, not waiting to be invited, I entered.

Henry was in conversation with his brother Humphrey of Gloucester and Bishop Henry. He looked up, frowning at the unwarranted disturbance of what was clearly a council of war, then, seeing me, his brow cleared.

‘Katherine…One minute.’

‘I have news,’ I stated, with only a modicum of grace.

‘From France?’ His head snapped round. ‘From the King? Is he still in health?’

‘As far as I know.’ The state of my father’s wits was of national importance, of course. ‘No, Henry. Not from France.’

Since it was not from France, he looked at me as if he could not imagine what I might have to tell him of such importance to interrupt his own concerns. He addressed a scowling Humphrey. ‘There’s this matter of the Scots supplying arms to the Dauphinists. It must be stopped.’

I walked forward until I could have touched him if I had chosen to. ‘I wish to speak with you now, Henry. I have not seen you for weeks.’ His brows climbed, but I stood my ground. I smiled. ‘I would like it if you were able to spare your wife five minutes of your time.’

‘Of course.’ His brief smile stretched his mouth. ‘If you will attend me here in the hour after noon.’

I was neither surprised nor shocked. Nor was I reduced to easy tears. I had come a long way from the girl who had stood beside him in the church in Troyes. I had more confidence than the girl who had feared sitting alone at her own coronation feast. My weeks alone since my curtailed progress had at last added a gloss of equanimity, however fragile.

‘Now, my lord.’ I raised my chin a little. ‘If it please you.’

I thought he might still refuse. I thought he might actually tell me to go away. Instead, Henry nodded to Humphrey and the bishop, who left us alone.

‘Well? News, you said.’

‘Yes.’ The bite of my nails digging into my palms was an acknowledgement that my courage was a finite thing. ‘I am carrying your child.’

It was as if I had stripped to my undershift in public. The stillness in the room prickled over my skin. Henry allowed the list he still held to flutter from his fingers, and for the first time since he had entered the room he really looked at me.

‘I carry your child,’ I repeated. ‘Before Christmas I think your child—pray God a son—will be born. You will have your heir, Henry.’

My words, as I heard them spoken aloud, stirred within me such exhilaration that at last I would achieve something of which he would approve. Surely this would make the difference. This would bring his attention back to me, even if not his love. If I carried a son for him he would be grateful and attentive so that I would not be swept away, like a lazy servant sweeping dust behind a tapestry. I knew that this was the best thing I could do for him, for England.

Since my discovery I had been counting the days to his return, telling no one but Guille, who held a bowl for me every morning as nausea struck. I would have Henry’s child: I would have his gratitude, and prove myself worthy of the contract made at Troyes that Parliament was about to ratify, not just for the crown I brought him but for the heir I had given him. Our son would be King of England and France.

I ordered myself to stand perfectly still as he watched me from under straight brows. I did not even show my pleasure. Not yet. Why did he not say anything? Was he not as delighted as I?

‘Henry,’ I said when still he did not respond. ‘If I have a son you will have achieved all you have worked for. To unite the crowns of England and France.’ What was he thinking? His eyes were opaque, his muscles taut, the stitched leopards immobile. ‘Our child—our son—will be King of England and France,’ I said, unnerved. ‘Are you not pleased?’

It did the trick. His face lit up in the smile such as he had used on the day that he had first met me, when it had turned my knees to water. It still did, God help me. It still did. He crossed the space between us in three rapid strides and seized my hands, kissing my brow, my lips with a fervency I had not experienced before.

‘Katherine—my dear girl. This is the best news I could have had. We will order a Mass. We will pray for a son. A son, in God’s name! Go and dress. We will go to the Abbey and celebrate this momentous event.’

One brush of his knuckles across my cheek, one final salute to my fingers and he released me, leaving me with a yearning that almost succeeded in reducing me to tears. Oh, how I wished he would take me in his arms and kiss me with tenderness, and tell me with intimate words that he was pleased and that he had missed me, even that he was grateful to me for fulfilling my royal duty to him as his wife.

Instead: ‘I need to finish dealing with these,’ he said. His face was vivid with emotion, but his hands and eyes were for the documents. ‘Then we will celebrate with the whole country your superlative gift to me.’

Superlative gift. That did not stop him closing the door behind me as he ushered me out to find something suitably celebratory to wear. I did not run back to my rooms. I walked slowly, considering that my place in Henry’s life would never be important enough to distract him from his role as King.

When the child was born, perhaps?

No, our weeks of being apart had changed nothing between us. I had read love where there was none, as a deprived child would seek it, when all that existed was tolerance and mild affection. I had given up on hope for more at Beverley, when he could not tell me of his grief. Now I abandoned my empty longings, even as I celebrated, clad in the blue of the Virgin’s robes and cloth of gold, my ermine cloak wrapped regally around me, as the voices in the Abbey rose about me in a paean of praise to announce that I was Queen and would soon be mother to the heir.

Even my damsels smiled on me.

‘You will stay here at Westminster,’ Henry informed me as he escorted me back to my chamber at the end of one of the interminable banquets to shackle the foreign ambassadors to our cause, very much in the tone that he had been issuing orders for the past hour. ‘You must send word to me as soon as my son is born.’

Henry was making preparations for his—and his army’s—imminent departure to Calais. I did not waste my breath asking if I would accompany him. If Henry did not want me with him on a progress through peaceful England, he would not want me on a military campaign beset by unknown difficulties. The days of our honeymoon when he had serenaded me with the best minstrels he could set his hands on so close to a battlefield seemed very far away.

I was now too precious to be risked, as the vessel that would produce the gilded heir. The child who would fulfil Henry’s dreams of an English Empire stretching from the north to the shores of the Mediterranean. I became part of his preparations.

‘Of course.’ There was no doubt in his mind that the child would be male. I tucked my hand into his arm, trying for a lighter mood. His brow was creased with a strong vertical line, his gaze distant. ‘You will be able to celebrate his birth at the same time as that of the Christ Child.’

‘Yes. Before I leave I will order a Mass to be said.’

‘Will you not return before then?’ It would be a good five months. Surely he would return.

‘If it is possible—I will if I can.’

In truth, I did not think he would. The preparations were for a long campaign, and once winter set in there would be no crossing of the Channel unless it was of absolute necessity. As we walked past one of the glazed windows, I looked out over the Thames, grey and drear for it was a cloudy day, and thoughts of winter lodged in my mind. I imagined Westminster would be a cold and inhospitable place in winter.

‘I think I will go to Windsor when the weather turns,’ I said.

‘No.’

I glanced up. Surprisingly, I had his entire attention. ‘Why not?’

‘It is not my wish.’

I felt a little spirit of rebellion stir in my belly. If Henry would not be in England, why should I not choose my residence? Perhaps he had not thought about it carefully enough, and if his concern was for my comfort then he must be open to persuasion. ‘The private rooms are more comfortable and less…’ I sought for a word ‘… less formidable at Windsor. Here I feel as if I am living in a monument rather than a home. The drainage is better at Windsor. I like the countryside too.’

I glanced up and tried a final thrust. ‘The chance of disease, I imagine, is far less at Windsor than living here in the middle of London. The child will thrive there.’

‘No.’ He was no longer even listening. ‘Stay here. Or go to the Tower if you wish. But not Windsor.’

‘I dislike the Tower as much as Westminster,’ I persisted. ‘And what if plague threatens London again?’

‘I’ll not be persuaded, Katherine. I expect you to be obedient to my wishes. Your reputation must be beyond reproach in all things,’ Henry replied. ‘I do not expect you to take matters into your own hands and set up a separate court.’

‘That was never my intent.’

Taking in his severe expression, I knew he considered that there was enough notoriety in my family with my mother living apart from my father in her own household, and was instantly filled with shame. Would I never be free of my mother’s notorious amours?

‘My reputation is beyond reproach,’ I retorted. ‘My mother’s morality is not mine.’

‘Of course. I implied no other,’ continued Henry, starkly disapproving. ‘Merely that the mother of the heir must be as pure as the Holy Virgin.’

‘But I don’t see why it would make a difference if I was at Windsor or Westminster.’

Henry stopped, his hand around my wrist, and for a long moment was caught in a tight-lipped silence as his eyes, bright hazel, searched my face.

‘I order it, Katherine. You will not go to Windsor.’

So much for my brief moment of subversion. I slid back into obedience. ‘Very well,’ I agreed stiffly. ‘I won’t if you don’t wish it.’

‘I will make all the arrangements before I go.’ Henry released my arm and we walked on. I could not see the need for the little lick of temper in his eyes, but if that was what he wanted, I would remain in Westminster and shiver through the cold. I would not go to Windsor. I would be as virtuous as the Virgin herself, cosseted and protected, an example to all womankind. Disillusion might keep me close companionship, but now I had a child to fill my thoughts. A child who I would love as my parents had never loved me.

Henry left me and went to war in a flurry of gilded armour, blazons and caparisoned horses. I received a publically formal bow and a peck on the cheek, impeded somewhat by the feathered war helm he carried, before he mounted. Once I would have been impressed. Now I knew that in his mind would be the superb chivalric impression his leavetaking would make on his subjects.

A pity about Windsor.

But the seed had been sown, and it blossomed more strongly in my mind every day. I began to think of the bright rooms, the large fireplaces, the warm water brought by a spigot so that bathing in a tiled chamber constructed for the purpose became a pleasure.

Why should I not? Henry could not have considered. His mind had been taken up with the French war—he must have been distracted when he had forbidden me, and would surely not object if I ran counter to his orders. He might even forget that he had actually objected. I might like to decide for myself…

A week of constant rain made up my mind. Westminster became a cold grey domain of draughts and streaming walls and icy floors. My growing bulk barely showed under the layers of furs and mantles that Alice heaped on me. Fur-lined slippers did not stop the rising cold as we huddled next to the fires. No one was tempted outside: exercise was taken in the Great Hall, our breath rising in clouds of vapour. And then there was the day when there was ice skimming the water in my ewer. Enough was enough. I could easily travel—it was still two months before the expected birth of my child and I could take to the seclusion of my suite of rooms in Windsor quite as well as in Westminster.

‘We will go to Windsor,’ I announced to Beatrice, suddenly much more cheerful.

‘Yes, my lady.’ And she departed with alacrity to supervise the packing.

‘Will we?’ Alice asked, surprised at this change of plan but willing to see its merits.

‘No, my lady.’ Mistress Waring was adamant, her frown formidable.

Mistress Johanna Waring. If Henry had thought he had made every preparation for my accouchement, he had been wrong, for this self-important individual had arrived in my expanding household the day after Henry’s departure, with much baggage heaped in two large wagons, and a shortage of breath due to her advanced age and considerable girth. Mistress Waring—I would never have dared address her as Johanna—nurse to the infant Henry and his brothers, and one time tirewoman to Lady Mary Bohun, Henry’s mother.