Читать книгу Blood Royal - Vanora Bennett - Страница 10

The English hunted for a day with the Queen. The next day, they invited Catherine and her ladies to hunt with them. Queen Isabeau said no. Perhaps she didn’t want to goad Louis any more. Perhaps she just didn’t want to be reminded that her daughter had no ladies to speak of – that the two youngest royal children, more or less forgotten on the edge of the court, lived the peculiar, twilight, scrounging existence they did. So the English left by dusk that night, in the purposeful flurry of green and brown that seemed to be their way. And, a day later, everything was back to normal – at least, back to the upside-down normal of the times of the King’s illnesses.

Catherine and Charles sat idly in the garden together. It was too hot to be inside. Their mother’s door was shut. The servants weren’t there. There was no food. As usual, there was nothing to do.

Charles threw a pebble into the fountain, trying to make it skim and bounce. It went straight down. But he was whistling. She could see he was glad the English had gone, with their marriage proposal.

‘I tell you what,’ he said, a few failed skims later. ‘I heard Mother and Marguerite whispering away together earlier. Planning something. Both looking really excited.’ He did an imitation of evil busily on the loose: hunching his shoulders forward in a one-man conspiracy, jokily narrowing his eyes into devil slits, darting them furtively from side to side, smacking his lips and leering. ‘Of course they shut up when they noticed I was listening. But I bet I know what they’re up to. They’re going to get their own back on Louis for being rude to the English Duke.’

Catherine sighed. They were both scared of their mother’s temper; and her plots.

But there was nothing else to look forward to. ‘I wonder what they’ll do to him?’ she said, a little apprehensively. Charles didn’t reply. After a long moment’s silence, she picked up a pebble herself.

They were lying under an apple tree in the orchard, flicking twigs up at the unripe fruit, when Christine appeared an hour later, calling for them.

She had a basket on her arm. She had a young man with her.

They hardly noticed him. They flew at her; two raggedy children, calling in thin, eager voices, ‘Christine! Christine!’ and ‘What’s in your basket?’ and ‘I’m starving!’ They dived at the basket and, with tremendous animation, began laying out the food she’d brought. Very ordinary food. Early strawberries. Some cheese in a cloth. Last night’s beef leftovers. A couple of eggs. A hunk of bread.

‘Can we eat now?’ Charles was begging, hanging on Christine’s arm. ‘Please?’ A funny little thing, Owain thought: eleven or twelve, but undersized, like a much younger boy, with a white face and a rabbit’s red eyes and a big, bulbous nose. His voice was squeaky and babyish. And why was a prince of France dressed like that? In old rags that Owain would have been ashamed of wearing; dirty, too?

Then he turned to the little Princess, who was sitting on the long grass, unwrapping the cloth from round the cheese with the tender excitement of someone who’d never seen food before. Like her brother, she was also in plain, old, crumpled clothes, with her skirts so much too long for her that they seemed made for someone else. She’d tied a knot in one side, perhaps to let her run or climb trees without tripping up. Her hair was loose; he could see a kerchief lying on the ground not far away. It was pretty hair; long and thick. But it was all tangles with bits of grass in it. She’d looked a young woman in the royal chambers, in her finery; but now she was nothing more than a scruffy child. Owain was wondering, rather disapprovingly, how these children came to look so neglected, when Catherine absent-mindedly lifted one hand, twisted her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, and turned to smile up at him.

And all at once Owain was lost for breath. How slim and long her neck was, how lovely the line of it, rising from her soft shoulders.

The sun was behind him. She was blinking a little, trying to focus her eyes on the tall shape before her; but he didn’t think she could really see him. He didn’t think she recognised him, or was remembering her own kindness in sparing his blushes at his Duke’s audience with her mother. She was only smiling that blind, vulnerable, enchanting smile out of a child’s pleasure at the presence of Christine, and the picnic, and something to do to relieve what he could see had been boredom.

But thinking those sensible thoughts didn’t stop the soft sense of wonder stealing through him as he stood and stared back, entranced by the sight of her, feeling his heart swell with joy.

It was Charles who broke the spell: Charles, wriggling and giggling around Christine, until she put firm arms on his skinny shoulders and said reprovingly, ‘Of course you can’t eat yet; not till I’ve introduced my guest. Where are your manners?’

That got the child’s attention all right. He turned straight to Owain, staring. Rudely, Owain thought; but then, whatever he was wearing, he was, after all, a prince of the blood, and allowed to stare at anyone he chose. He narrowed his eyes. ‘I know you!’ he cried, almost accusingly. ‘You’re the one who held the casket while the English Duke gave my sister a jewel. Aren’t you?’

Owain nodded, and bowed. ‘The very same,’ he said easily, doing his best to charm. ‘Owain Tudor.’ He’d half-turned to face the little boy; but he was blissfully, agonisingly aware, at the same time, of the girl looking up at him from below, muttering, with pink cheeks and a prettily awkward air, ‘I remember you now, of course, it’s just that you look different, out here in the sun.’

You must be informal, Christine had said; just call them by their names; no bowing and scraping. In the gardens they’re just children; they’re very quiet; shy; it’s wrong to scare them with formalities; we’re old friends. All the same, he wished now he’d put on something better than the simple tunic he was wearing. For reasons he didn’t understand, he wanted to cut as elegant a figure as he could.

Christine, also visibly keen to make the introductions go smoothly, said, in a special child-voice whose gentleness surprised Owain, ‘Owain is from a noble family of Wales – the kings of Powys Magog.’ She pronounced the Welsh words strangely, but he was surprised and flattered that she’d even tried to reproduce the unfamiliar name; flattered, too, that she was describing his lineage with such respect, when he’d got used, almost, to being all but invisible among Englishmen; to sitting below the salt; to being ignored. ‘I thought you’d enjoy showing him the gardens, and the lion.’

Little Charles didn’t look as though he’d enjoy that at all. For someone supposedly so shy, there was a definite aggression in his expression. He was scowling. He said: ‘But the English party is supposed to have gone. They told us in the kitchens. Why are you still here?’

Owain opened his mouth to make a soft reply. But he wasn’t sorry when Christine got there first. The truth was that he wouldn’t have been sure what to say about why he was still in Paris, or, indeed, at the Hotel Saint-Paul. Christine had suggested he come with her so he could see the famous gardens at the King’s favourite Paris home, though he’d had a feeling she really just wanted to show off her friendship with the King’s children. Not everyone was on such intimate terms with princes; and he’d begun to see that Christine, magnificent though she was, wasn’t above vanity.

‘Owain was only temporarily attached to the Duke of Clarence,’ Christine told the pouting little boy reassuringly. Owain could tell from the practised way she patted at him that this suspicious, feral child must often take a lot of reassuring. ‘He’s not with them any more. The rest of the English have gone, darling. I doubt they’ll be back.’ She patted again. The little boy’s eyes lost their fierce look. ‘But Owain wanted to stay on in Paris for a while to see if he’d like to study at the University. He’s my guest. And he’s reading my modest collection of books while he’s here. Racing through them. An example to all of us. An example to you!’ she finished brightly.

Little Charles wasn’t quite satisfied yet. But he put his concerns, whatever they were, to one side; nodded briefly at Owain, and said again to Christine, even more plaintively: ‘So can we eat now?’

Owain’s heart leapt. He saw that Catherine was still watching him from her place on the long grass, catching his eye so he’d be sure to notice her. She was shrugging slightly and casting her eyes upwards, in a quiet, friendly apology for her brother’s awkward manners.

He smiled back at her, grateful for the thought; wondering why she had her hand clamped, as she did, across her mouth. It looked like a gag. She didn’t seem conscious of it. It was an ugly gesture. Then she forgot him. She was hungry too. And she was still a child. As Charles threw himself down beside her, ready to snatch at the food she’d set out, she moved her hand, freed her mouth, turned a teasing grin on her brother, and plucked the bit of bread he was aiming for off its cloth. ‘Too late,’ she mumbled with it in her mouth. Charles pouted; then, seeing Christine smile, he started to laugh too.

There was a breadcrumb on the side of her lip. There was a mischievous glint in her eye. There was sun in her hair. Owain, who’d thought he was excited and happy before, seeing the world, caught up in adventure, could hardly believe the trembling intensity of the joy he now felt just watching her, as he and Christine slid down to their knees to join the picnic.

Charles led the way to the lion cage. Food had improved his mood. So had the exchange he’d begun as soon as he had an egg inside him and a slice of beef and most of the strawberries.

‘Does the King of England really want to marry Catherine and take her away?’ he’d asked Owain, and his eyes had had both fierceness and a kind of mute plea in them.

‘Yes,’ Owain said kindly, understanding what was making the child look so glum – fear of losing his playmate if she married – and feeling sorry for him.

‘No,’ Christine said at the same time, with much more force. ‘He knows we’ll say no – we already said no to him as a husband for Princess Isabelle, because he’s a …’ Looking at Owain, she refrained from saying ‘usurper’, but only just. ‘In any case, he doesn’t want a marriage. He wants war. He’s already started harping on about English claims to France. He’ll just use any marriage negotiations to pick a quarrel with France. He’s looking for a grievance. It would be naive to think anything else.’

There was a short pause. Owain, feeling shocked that he hadn’t understood how hostile some of the French might feel towards his King and, trying not to resent Christine’s sudden brusque rudeness, looked carefully away. But he saw little Charles nodding, clearly believing Christine. ‘Let’s go to the lions,’ Charles piped up, looking suddenly much more cheerful. He bounded off through the bowers and trellises and artful fountains and sprays of roses.

Owain brought up the rear. The royal gardens were so extraordinary that he quickly forgot the sting of Christine’s tongue and was soon turning his head from side to side, admiring statues; views; flowers; nightingale cages; fountains gleaming with silver fishes. Miracles.

Everyone stopped when they got to the great wrought-iron cage. Inside, a matted, maddened lion paced, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, over its droppings, snarling. It was menace in animal form. It was golden; it was stinking; a king humiliated. It never stopped trying to escape. Even now, in this heat, it was pulling the chain that ran from its collar to the stake in the ground as taut as it could, testing the possibilities, following its instinct, feeling for a way out.

A silence fell on them all as they admired its powerful shoulders and the magnificent lines of its muzzle and its tawny, deadly eyes.

‘Has it ever got out?’ Owain asked, in a dazed voice.

No one answered.

Charles whispered: ‘They feed it a whole dog, or a pig, or a sheep, every day.’ He added, without expression: ‘The animals always scream before they die.’

After a while, Catherine asked, just as quietly: ‘Does the King of England keep lions?’

As she spoke, she glanced up towards Christine, who was standing well back from the cage. She was looking past the lion into the distance; lost in some private thought of her own, which, to judge from the tragic expression on her face, wasn’t a happy one.

Catherine turned her steady gaze back on Owain.

Owain had no idea if there had ever been a lion in England. And his head was too full of lion-stink and heat to be able to think straight. But there was nothing he wanted more than to feel her eyes on him. ‘There’s an elephant at the Tower of London,’ he said. He’d heard the story, even if he hadn’t seen the elephant on his few brief trips to London. And he’d seen a picture of an elephant once. It was the most impressive thing he could think of to say.

‘What’s an elephant like?’ Catherine asked.

‘Huge and grey,’ he said boldly, describing the picture he remembered, beginning to enjoy his story. ‘Like a giant dog. And instead of a nose it has an extra limb – curving up, in the shape of a horn.’

He’d hoped to astonish her with his fabulous beast. But she just nodded, matter-of-factly, as if she saw elephants every day. Perhaps being among miracles at all times took away the edge of shock.

Then, after another furtive glance at Christine, she added in a whisper: ‘And what’s Henry of England like?’

She moved a little closer.

Owain paused, trying desperately to marshal his thoughts. She smelled of roses.

‘Honest,’ he muttered, thinking defiantly that he could at least do something to right the damningly wrong impression Christine had given of his King. ‘Straightforward. Good-tempered … A good planner … And an excellent master: everyone who serves him loves him …’

He glanced up at Christine himself, hoping she was still staring past the lions, thinking her thoughts and not listening to him.

Catherine was so close now that she couldn’t help but catch the movement of his eyes and know what he was thinking. She bit her lip; but the breathless beginning of a giggle escaped anyway. She nodded conspiratorially at him. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, ‘Christine’s not listening.’

For a moment they stood too close, exchanging glances, not quite laughing. He was dizzy with the intimacy of it; dizzy with the bees buzzing around him. Then she went back to prompting him: ‘And the court, the English court? What’s that like?’

Owain hardly knew anything of the court, either. He’d served at banquets – three hours of silent eating. He’d ridden behind hunts. But he didn’t know if any of that would impress her, any more than the elephant had. He let the smell of roses and warm skin drift delightfully into his nostrils. He hesitated. He wanted to make England attractive. But he wanted to tell her the truth, too.

Hesitantly, he began: ‘Not as magnificent as this … and London isn’t a quarter the size of Paris.’ His head cleared. Suddenly he knew what might appeal to someone brought up in times as uncertain as those Catherine had known here – times, he thought, with sudden understanding, that had perhaps been almost as uncertain as those he’d known, in a different way. He’d tell her what had appealed to him about coming to England – it had been exactly the same thing. He went on, with greater confidence: ‘But it’s very orderly. Dignified. Decorous. Calm. The King and his brothers and his three Beaufort uncles rule together, wisely and in perfect unison … and the people love them all.’

She was nodding now; looking thoughtful; wistful even. He’d been right. She was impressed by that.

Louder, because it would be foolhardy to expect Christine not to come out of her reverie sooner or later, and seriously, because he wanted the pleasure of watching Catherine’s lips move and eyes dance and neck sway as she considered her reply, he asked: ‘And what about here? The French court … what’s that like?’

She thought. Her forehead wrinkled enchantingly.

But it was Charles who, turning away from the lion at last, broke in with an answer. ‘Dancing and debauchery!’ he shouted, throwing out both arms as if taunting a mob.

Catherine laughed, a little uneasily. ‘He doesn’t know what it means,’ she told Owain. ‘It’s just something they were shouting in the street … last year … when there was …’ Then, as Owain’s startled look sank in, she turned crossly to her little brother and reprimanded him: ‘You mustn’t say that! I’ve told you so many times!’

‘I do know what it means. There was a ball here once when four men dressed up as hairy savages,’ Charles piped up stubbornly. ‘They were supposed to jump out and scare the ladies. But their costumes caught fire on a torch, and two of them burned to death before everyone’s eyes,’ he added with ghoulish relish. ‘You can imagine the screaming.’

‘Did that really happen?’ Owain couldn’t help asking. You never knew, here. Perhaps it had. ‘Were you there?’

With something like regret, the little voice replied: ‘No … before I was born.’ And the pinched, freckled boy’s face clouded.

Catherine said: ‘But I went to the Court of Love once … my uncle’s idea … the Duke of Orleans …’

She dimpled at Owain.

He softened: ‘And what was that?’ he asked.

‘A kind of repeating ball. No, more than that: an idea, a place where people could meet – the officers of the Court of Love – and talk about chivalry, judge cases of unhappy love, and learn how to be true lovers themselves …’ she said, being careful with her words. He could see she remembered it with affection.

‘And everyone wore beautiful clothes, too,’ she added, with childlike regret; ‘we don’t have anything like that any more … not since …’

Charles said: ‘… my uncle was murdered.’ There was ghoulish pleasure in his eyes.

There was a rush of air behind them. All three young people froze, as if they’d been caught doing something terribly wrong. Christine had come to herself. With a whisk of bony elbows, she broke into their little circle, clearly annoyed at the way the conversation was going. ‘You were three at the Court of Love,’ she said sharply to Catherine. ‘And he’s been dead for seven years. If there’s nothing like that now, then there’s no reason to talk about it any more, either. It might well have done us all more good if there’d been less idle talk about chivalry back then, and more sensible thought about real life.’

She put a determined arm through Owain’s. Looking sideways as he was pulled away from Catherine’s side, their eyes met again; another shared look full of quiet laughter and delight.

‘It’s getting late,’ Christine said, pointing at the long shadows. She tried to keep her voice strict, but she couldn’t help sounding relieved. She’d never brought anyone here with her, except Anastaise and her own Jean, who hardly counted, to meet these children. She’d always been afraid that Catherine and Charles might turn silent; stare; run away like deer into the woods. But this day had gone so easily. They’d loved the Welsh boy. She’d wanted them to. She admired him herself: she liked the way he’d found through adversity – the questions, the bright eyes, the unquenched hope. He was already bringing the younger children out of their quiet little selves; he was getting them to talk. Christine was pleased with her experiment.

Catherine bowed her head. ‘Will you come back tomorrow?’ she asked submissively, going up to Christine to kiss her cheeks, and, perhaps by accident, almost brushing Owain’s arm as she passed. ‘We have so many books – hundreds of them, the most beautiful in the world. You’re allowed into the library anyway, Christine, but what about …’ She dimpled over at Owain, plucking up courage. ‘He’d like to see them too, wouldn’t he? … Will you bring Owain?’

The air was cool and dusty in the hush of this room. The library walls were lined with treasures in jewelled calf bindings. Owain couldn’t bear even to look at his guide, though he was dimly aware, through the thunderous beating of his heart, that beside him Catherine’s cheeks were flushed from the heaviness of the grown-up green velvet houppelande she was wearing again, and that there were tiny, wilting flowers scattered through the loose weave of her veil.

‘Show him the beautiful Consolations of Philosophy,’ Christine was whispering excitedly to Catherine. ‘And your grandfather’s book of hours … this was the old King’s library, once, Owain.’

Only Charles, reluctantly bringing up the rear, was spoiling the mood. He was scuffing his feet and looking mutinous, and a stream of unending childish complaints were coming from his lips.

‘Let’s go and see the lions instead,’ he kept saying, just too loud for anyone else’s comfort; ‘… I don’t want to sit inside all day … it’s so hot … I don’t know why Catherine’s suddenly so interested in books; she isn’t usually … I want to climb a tree … Christine?’

‘Shh, darling,’ Christine kept murmuring, in that strangely gentle voice Owain had noticed her using with the little boy before; ‘let’s just stay here for a while more …’

But eventually she sighed and gave in. ‘I’ll bring him back in an hour,’ she said to Catherine, trying to sound firm. ‘Not a minute more.’

Charles wasn’t listening. He was pulling her out of the door.

For a moment, Owain thought his overstretched heart would stop altogether. He had no idea at all what he’d say to Catherine; he was appalled and overjoyed at the same time by the possibility that he might spend the next hour this close to her, yet might also disgrace himself with utter, tongue-tied, childish silence. In the event, however, as soon as the footsteps died away in the corridor, leaving him alone with Catherine, but for the scribe copying something in a shaft of sunlight at the other end of the room, Owain’s wits came back to him.

He hardly knew what he was doing. He certainly didn’t think it out before he spoke. But he found himself catching Catherine’s eye and, with a daring grin, breathing the words: ‘Do you have the Romance of the Rose here?’

It was pure mischief to ask. The Romance, he knew, was Christine’s great hate: she called it the most immoral book in Christendom. Written more than a century earlier, in two parts, by two men, it was also one of the most famous love stories in existence. But it was only since he’d heard Christine fulminating against it that Owain had started to want to see it for himself. His understanding was that the first part was a harmless enough allegory about a Lover in the Garden of Desire, trying to get near the Rose he adores, but failing, when Jealousy raises walls all around to keep him out. It was the second half, written years later by Jean de Meun, that Christine really disliked. There were two reasons for her hate. Not only did De Meun’s Lover manage, after all, to seduce the Rose, (while ungallantly making out that women were capricious, stupid, vicious, garrulous, gullible, greedy and lascivious by nature) – but the author also made abundantly clear, through his story, that he didn’t believe in the sanctity of the lifelong bond of marriage, as Christine did. For de Meun, there was only lust.

Owain knew Christine had made her reputation, while still young and little known, by denouncing the book publicly, in an exchange of letters with University men which she copied to the court, and to the Queen. And Owain wanted to show Catherine, here, today, now, that he was the kind of man who knew about such things.

For a split second, Catherine looked terrified. Then, with an answering flash of mischief, she grinned quickly back. Her lips parted slightly; her eyes went wide, as if she were considering the delicious possibilities of this act. Letting the pent-up breath he hadn’t realised he was holding gently out, he could see that she could see he knew Christine’s feelings about this book. ‘Christine would be so angry …’ she whispered, but she was already disappearing into the gloom. When she came out, she had a book in her hand.

It was only the innocent first volume, Owain saw with disappointment when they put it on the bookstand and, standing side by side in front of it, carefully opened it, finding the first jewel-like colours of tiny lovers listening to miniature musicians strumming lutes in a cloud of roses. Still, he reasoned, that meant Christine would have less reason to be angry; perhaps he should be relieved. Perhaps he should admire Catherine’s caution.

But then he forgot everything, except that Catherine was standing by him, so close he could feel the warmth of her shoulder against his arm, and the whole side of his body nearest to her was on quiet fire, and he could smell rose oil. Breathing softly and shallowly, Catherine stretched a finger towards the first words, as if she found it hard to make out the narrow upright script, and as she did so her arm brushed so close to his chest that it almost touched his heart. And all at once they were lost in the roses, caressing the vellum as they gently turned the pages, sighing out the words, as if to themselves, or to each other …

Catherine turned the page. ‘Ohh,’ she murmured, scarcely more than a breath of regret; ‘there’s no more …’

Their eyes met. There was no reason for them to go on standing so close. But Owain couldn’t turn away; couldn’t step back. For a long moment they went on looking quietly into each other’s eyes; as if they could have stayed there forever, just watching each other.

Then Owain heard footsteps from far away in the corridor, and the querulous words: ‘… but it’s so boring inside! Can’t we have another picnic?’ and, when he recovered from the shock and looked back down towards Catherine, he realised, feeling bereft and quietly relieved at the same time, that she wasn’t by his side any more, and the book wasn’t on the stand, either.

By the time Christine and Charles walked back in, Owain was standing in front of the bookstand, head bowed, eyes following his finger, struggling to read the first words of Boethius’ Consolations of Philosophy, translated into French; and Catherine, standing well back, with her hands clasped demurely in front of her, was listening.

Christine, whose attention was mostly still on the fractious small boy tugging at her arm, longing to be off, looked pleased at the sight of the older ones reading. She didn’t seem to notice either the hint of a smile that kept coming to Owain’s face, or the excessively bright innocence of the sidelong glances that Catherine was flashing at her from under thick, sweeping lashes.

So much, in the days that followed, made Owain feel as if he’d walked into a magical world of dreams come true. Without his even needing to do anything to change his life, a future he’d never have thought possible was almost settled, almost at once. Christine’s friend, Jean de Gerson, the elderly chancellor of the University of Paris (and, in the old days, her great ally in the quarrel of the Romance of the Rose), offered Owain a place to study as soon as Christine recommended him. Gerson, Owain knew, was a wise man; Gerson had thought at once of the brilliant, devious former chancellor of free Wales, Owain Glynd?r’s man, Gruffydd Young – who was now in exile in Paris – and suggested Young might be the man to vouch for Owain Tudor’s good character. Now all Owain was waiting for was for Gerson to suggest to the other canons of Notre Dame Cathedral that a bursary be found too. ‘Once you know about that,’ Christine said, leaning forward so her eyes shone in the trembling candle flame, making her voice resonate darkly and persuasively, ‘you can write to your Duke, or King, and ask to be relieved of your service for a couple of years.’

Whenever Owain remembered the confused, dizzy happiness of the next few weeks, what came first to his mind was the heat: a scorching June, with the flagstones burning underfoot as he came out from the royal library. He was usually alone for a couple of hours in those cool rooms. Charles seemed to have been right; Catherine didn’t often want to be in the library. Later, with Catherine (and Charles, though Charles he noticed only with the kindly indifference of a grown-up man for a child) he recalled laughing breathlessly and seeking out shade and water for their picnics; and ignoring Christine’s remonstrations, and running barefoot to the fountains, dipping their toes in.

‘Have you ever seen someone kill someone?’ Owain heard, as he stared up at the ribbons of cloud and smelled the crushed grass under his back.

It was Charles’ voice: thin and small and careful.

Owain’s voice was also small and careful as – trying not to let any actual memories enter his head – he replied: ‘Yes.’

Charles was lying beside him. The boy had quietly put himself there, in Owain’s shadow, like a smaller animal looking for protection. Catherine was sitting curled up round her knees, just behind them, plaiting grasses. Christine was picking grasses for her.

‘My brother tried to kill a man,’ Charles said. ‘A man in a brown leather tunic. He was one of the men who broke in last year. He ran into the ballroom where Louis was holding a ball and started shouting at him that he was a disgrace and that he shouldn’t be allowed to be king.’

‘Just what Maman is always saying …’ Catherine added, still braiding. They were both talking quietly, as if in a dream.

‘And Louis got a look on his face,’ Charles went on. ‘A horrible look. And he got out his dagger. He stabbed him three times. But the man kept shouting. He wouldn’t die, however often Louis stabbed him. The blade just got stuck in the leather. Then everyone started shouting and running around. And all the other men ran in; they were breaking windows to get at us.’

‘You saw all that?’ Owain said, raising himself on an elbow and looking at the boy.

‘I was behind the arras. We often go and watch when there’s a ball. There’s a tear in the tapestry. Sometimes the servants let us take some food there. Catherine wasn’t there that night. They let her dress up and go to the ball. So it was just me. I thought they’d kill everyone. Then find me.’

‘How did it end?’ Owain asked.

‘Our cousin of Burgundy came in. He had his own men-at-arms. He had the ones who were shouting sent out. But after he’d gone, with all his men and all the intruders, everyone who was left, the guests, were saying it was all really his fault – that he must have been behind it all – otherwise how could he have known to turn up at that moment with soldiers?’

He shivered. So did Catherine. ‘Our cousin of Burgundy is always behind everything,’ she whispered.

‘You must have been scared,’ Owain murmured, keeping compassionate eyes on Charles.

Charles shook his head and coloured up. He shrilled: ‘Princes are never afraid.’

Owain said gently: ‘I grew up in a war. I was often scared. I was just a boy; I was helpless. Sometimes the things I saw came back to me in my dreams.’

‘You were scared?’ Charles said. He looked thoughtful. Then: ‘I have bad dreams.’

Owain shook his head sympathetically. ‘Mine stayed with me for years,’ he said. ‘But give them time. They pass.’

Charles nodded. He sat up too, a little closer to Owain. Christine, who’d said nothing during this conversation, smiled to herself and passed Catherine another piece of grass.

There was a silence.

‘This is the happiest summer I can remember,’ Catherine murmured contentedly, lying down on the grass in the shade of a tree full of green apples and stretching herself out. ‘Even Maman and Louis aren’t quarrelling as much as usual …’

Charles pulled himself up on his elbows, dazed and sated. He had smears of cheese around his mouth and grass in his hair. ‘Only because Maman agreed to send Marguerite away …’ he objected, but he sounded cheerful too; as if he were enjoying the argument. ‘And Papa’s still away too … ill …’

They both looked very serious at that. They nodded solemnly at each other, like much younger children. ‘Poor Papa,’ Catherine said piously.

Owain could feel Christine’s eyes warningly on him. He had the feeling these two didn’t know what was the matter with their father. Christine might be worried that he’d say something tactless. He kept reassuringly still. But Christine changed the subject anyway. She said, tartly: ‘And, of course, the Duke of Burgundy has called up ten thousand men, and he’s sitting in Dijon, just waiting for your mother and Louis to fall out … you shouldn’t get so carried away by a few days of hot weather that you forget that …’

She gave them a chiding look from under the white headdress that, despite the heat, she wouldn’t take off.

But it was too hot and light and safe here in the walled garden to care about ten thousand men in Dijon. Catherine only giggled, just a little nervously, and reached for another strawberry.

‘When I get married, it will be a golden day like this,’ the Princess said, biting into the fruit, looking at it. She was careful not to say whom she planned to marry. She didn’t want to annoy Christine. Owain stared at her mouth; at the glistening fruit. She knew he was looking at her. Taking another strawberry, she went on, dreamily, childishly: ‘And I’ll make Maman let me have a dress of cloth of gold, so I’ll glitter like the sun. And you’ll all be there, watching me, all three of you,’ and she flashed a beseeching look at Owain, and smiled at the soft glance she got back. ‘Won’t you?’ She ate the second strawberry. ‘And we’ll all be as happy as we are today, for ever and ever.’

‘They trust you,’ Christine said. ‘Charles has never talked about that before. I’m glad he did.’

Modestly, Owain lowered his head. He was leading her mule. They were walking west, along Saint Anthony Street, homeward, into the sunset, dazzled by the thick honey light. It was easy enough to look down. He knew both Charles and Catherine were coming to trust him – just as, he supposed, their father Charles and their uncle Louis of Orleans must have, long ago, as children, come to trust Christine, their own non-royal playmate in the gardens of the Hotel Saint-Paul. There was a pleasure in the continuity of that tradition started a generation ago by Christine, as well as the personal pleasure Owain felt at his own deepening friendship with this generation of royal children.

Owain spent large parts of his evenings with Christine’s books. He was an acolyte; overwhelmed with respect for her writing. He rushed through the books, feverish with words, eager for the next entire imaginary world he knew would be waiting for him inside the next cover. She had written so much: advice to widows, army strategy manuals (how did a woman do that?), an account of the philosopher-king Charles V’s life. But what he really wanted to read most, now, was the poems of wistful unrequited love that she’d earned her first money from.

Finding him reading her old poems, Christine gave him someone else’s book: the treatise by Andreas Cappellanus, The Art of Honest Love, in which the rules of the convention of unrequited love known to lovers all over Christendom were set out in three volumes. Owain found it very strange, and not only because it was in Latin, which he struggled to grasp. The delicious sufferings of the knights he understood all too well; the sighs. But, in true courtly love, as depicted in books, it appeared that the lady must always be haughty and superior. Her role was only to educate her lover, whose moral standing must be improved to make him worthy of her. However, he could never hope to improve himself enough to win her. The true aim of their love had nothing to do with achieving the satisfaction of a romantic union. It was a love that could never be satisfied; it was a love that could only exist outside marriage.

When Owain plucked up courage to ask, at Christine’s table, why the ladies of the poems must always be so harsh, it was Jean who replied, with a hint of impatience: ‘Because, if they ever did give in, there’d be nothing to show for all those years of trembling knightly devotion but adultery and moral disaster, would there now?’ He shrugged a brusque apology at his mother, but went on. ‘The idea of courtly love is … safer: a lifetime of spiritual adultery. Improve and be improved! Pine and be pined for! But never a moment of physical love. Never so much as a kiss.’

He laughed at Owain’s hot blush. ‘I’ve shocked you,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken so plainly.’ Getting up, he added: ‘Courtly love poems can make love seem too pretty. It’s not always pretty – love. You’re too young to know. You should leave love poetry alone until you’ve felt it yourself.’

‘He’s working so hard,’ Christine said after he’d gone, as if excusing her son’s tetchiness. It was true. Jean was out of the house long before everyone else was up, making sure there was money coming in, food on the table, but so rushed off his feet with the chancellor’s projects that his eyes were drooping before anyone else had finished supper. Christine sighed. There was a tired silence.

A moment later, Owain realised that Christine’s sigh signified something quite different from fatigue, or embarrassment that Jean had talked disrespectfully of poetry. She had something on her mind. She wanted to ask him a favour.

Fiddling with a bit of gristle on her platter, and looking down, almost nervously, she cleared her throat and asked if Owain would make a two-day trip out of Paris with her, to visit her daughter Marie, who was a nun at the monastery of Poissy. ‘Usually Jean takes me; but I can’t ask him now; he can’t spare the time,’ she said, and when she looked up he saw her eyes glisten.

Owain had read in one of Christine’s books that she had a daughter in a monastery. In her first months of widowhood, he knew, Christine had discovered that the dowry she thought had been put aside by her dead husband for this daughter had been stolen; and, without a bride price, Christine’s girl-child could never marry. Marie de Castel’s future had been saved by the King of France. When his own daughter, also called Marie, had entered the convent for royal women at Poissy, he’d found Christine’s daughter a place at her side, and paid the dowry the nuns demanded out of his own purse. Christine had written about her gratitude for the King’s goodness.

But Owain had never heard Marie’s name mentioned in her mother’s voice. Now, looking at Christine’s imploring eyes, which – although he knew she was much too self-possessed to weep – he could swear were soft with unshed tears, he could guess why. It was simple. She missed her daughter.

‘I’m allowed to visit her once a year; at the feast of St John … I don’t want to miss it,’ she was saying, looking down again, and he could hear the pain in her voice now, so clear that he was touched by the bravery with which she’d lived her hard, odd life. When he put a hand on hers, she took comfort from it. She didn’t shake it off. St John, he calculated: midsummer; in the next few days. ‘Of course,’ he said gently. ‘It will be my pleasure.’

She looked up now, blinking; and the smile that came to her face was both relieved and triumphant. She wanted to lighten the atmosphere, he could see; she knew she’d looked vulnerable, and she didn’t like to be pitiful. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured; then, in more conversational tones: ‘You’ll enjoy it, I think. It’s the most beautiful place, Poissy … tranquil … serene …’ She laughed, without amusement. ‘So beautiful that sometimes I think I should go and end my own days there, with my Marie.’ She blinked again and smiled; Owain saw that, despite her efforts, her eyes were watery again. She’d never have her family all together under one roof again; she’d never be completely happy with her choice, whether it was to be with her son or her daughter; there’d always be regrets.

‘… But not now, of course,’ Christine went briskly on. She got up from the table. She gestured with her veiny hands at the familiar room, full of the leftovers of dinner and her grandchildren’s clutter and the paraphernalia of family life. ‘There’s too much holding me here.’

Owain could see her biting her lip as she headed for the door. He sat on at the table, thinking.

He didn’t especially want to go to Poissy, not for himself. Owain could think of nothing but staying in Paris; nothing beyond the next few weeks and months here, in this perfect, frenzied, breathless moment, feeling young and full of joy with his confidence growing that every pleasure in life still lay ahead. There was something of the same feeling, he sensed, in Catherine’s endless questions about England, which kept coming even though there’d been no further word from the English court about the possible royal marriage. Whenever Christine wasn’t listening, Catherine would be whispering another request for information, about the King, jousting, London, the length of royal processions, Parliament, horses, fashions, the royal homes strung along the Thames valley … Owain couldn’t permit himself to examine the combination of hope and unease that this day-by-day interrogation aroused in him, but it hovered on the edge of his mind anyway, like a brilliant sunburst, too bright to look at. It was as if each of them were striving towards the place on the map that they sensed was natural for the other.

Still, if Christine wanted him to travel out of Paris with her, he would do her bidding. Of course he would. Even if it meant leaving the city where the sun always seemed to shine and happiness was within such easy reach, it was the least he could do for the woman who’d opened the door to it all.

The storm broke the next day. Over the ruins of a picnic in the gardens, they all heard the sound of hoofs in the heat of the afternoon. Half a dozen horses broke the silence; too close; too fast; only reining in a hasty gallop at the gate for long enough for a thin, angry male voice to hiss, ‘Get out of the way, you bloody fool; don’t you see who I am?’ and for a whip to crack; and then more jingling and neighing as the skittering horses were urged on again, up to the Queen’s house, over the flagstones just behind the nearest bushes.

Owain shook himself and raised his head. He didn’t know what was habitual here and what was not; he was only responding to the heightening of tension in the others. Charles was sitting straight up. Catherine’s head had jerked round to follow the sounds. They were both watching the bushes for any glimpse of the passing horses. Christine was getting to her feet; brushing grass off her skirts.

‘Louis,’ Charles said. His voice was hushed. He sounded scared.

‘Trouble,’ Catherine said, also in a tone of foreboding, following Christine to her feet. Charles scrambled up too.

No one needed to say more. It seemed entirely natural to start off, at a hasty pace somewhere between a walk and a run, in the direction the horses had taken. Breathlessly, Owain followed, heading for trouble too.

The royal Hotel Saint-Paul was a compound of separate houses set within the gardens. They watched from under a tree in front of the Queen’s house. In the heat and softness and grass, it felt unreal to Owain. None of the men on horseback, now reined in and waiting, seemed aware of the four extra sets of footsteps running up then stopping; of their quick breath. No one turned when Catherine quietly, protectively, put an arm round Charles’ trembling shoulder.

‘How dare you? How dare you?’ Crown Prince Louis was screaming. He’d dismounted. He was waving his whip, but not at the horse which had its suddenly placid head down in a tub of flowers. His face, whiter than ever, was all huge, black-rimmed, furious eyes. They were locked on the Queen, who, fat and carapaced in green silk, was gleaming like a poison beetle as she looked down at him from the shade of the colonnade. There were some smaller, bright-coloured forms behind her; was the whole court watching? Even from here, Owain could see the Queen was smiling.

‘Set them free at once. You had no right!’ Louis howled, on and on, beside himself, advancing menacingly up the stairs, never shifting his gaze. The Queen ignored his screechings. She stood her ground, and went on smirking and flashing her eyes hypnotically at him as he got closer; as he moved out of the sunlight and into the shadows. It wasn’t a nice smile. Owain thought, with a mixture of fascination and repulsion: She’s enjoying this.

There was a fast-moving blur in the shadows. Disbelievingly, Owain thought he could distinguish a raised arm; then the crack of leather on flesh.

The Queen stepped forward into the sunlight. Slowly, deliberately, she raised one hand to cup her injured cheek. Louis had struck her with his whip. Even from this distance, Owain could see the red welt on her face. Even from this distance, he could see the triumph in her eye.

There was a strange little whinny of laughter from somewhere very close. He glanced at his three companions. It must have been one of them. But they were straight-faced; concentrating; so sombre that he wondered, for an instant, whether it hadn’t been him who’d let that terrified laugh escape.

There was a terrible pause before the Queen spoke. Her voice was quiet but carrying; as taut as a whiplash. ‘You’re making a fool of yourself, Louis,’ she said. Owain could hear the taunt in it. ‘This isn’t how princes of chivalry are supposed to behave to the mothers who raised them, you know.’

Louis flinched, and put down the whip.

‘But then, what do you care about that? You just do whatever you want, whenever you want; don’t let anything get in the way of your satisfaction, whatever it is, however depraved. Don’t you?’ The female voice was rising now, enough to instil fear, though not quite enough to sound hysterical. ‘You’re still a spoiled child; you think of nothing but “want, want, want”,’ she went on, carefully nursing her welt and her grudge; keeping her rhythm. ‘And then you’re surprised when things don’t work out the way you want them to. You’re surprised when people start saying someone who can do all the self-willed, degenerate, dreadful things you do, without any hesitation, without the least guilt, is going the way your father’s gone,’ – Owain was aware of the hush deepening – ‘and should be kept from the throne.’

She stuck her face out towards him; making sure to stay in the sunlight so all the watchers could see.

‘No wonder there are riots and rebellions in Paris,’ she intoned, gloatingly; ‘no wonder people say the harsh things about you that I so often hear. You shouldn’t be surprised, Louis. You shouldn’t be surprised.’

She took another step towards him.

‘Are you proud of striking your mother?’ she asked, as if this taunting, hateful conversation was a ritual they often observed – which, Owain could see from the looks of dread on the two children’s faces, it must indeed be. ‘Are you? Do you think behaviour like this is worthy of a future king?’

Louis’ head drooped. He shifted ground; stepped back, further into the shadows. ‘You overstepped the mark. You had no right to do what you did,’ he muttered, still angry, sounding truculent but also, already, defeated. She’d got behind his defences.

Owain had no idea what this quarrel was about, or how to find out. But he could see that those more familiar with appalling, frightening spectacles like this had ways of finding out. He watched as Catherine let go of Charles’ shoulder and stepped, as lightly and daintily as a ghost, across the grass to the nearest horseman. ‘What happened?’ she whispered up at him; half whisper, half hiss; a command for information.

The man – an esquire of some sort – looked down at her with fear and blankness and resignation mingled in his face. ‘She came to the Louvre this morning while he was out hunting. In a litter. With a lady-in-waiting: his wife, Marguerite of Burgundy,’ he muttered, jerking his finger towards the colonnade. Since Louis so loathed the wife the Queen insisted on harbouring, the whole court knew that in itself to be an act of hostility. ‘They brought troops. And they arrested four of his counsellors. Including my lord Jean de Croy.’

Catherine gave him another look through narrow eyes. ‘Why?’ she asked again.

The man looked still more miserable. He just shrugged. It was clear there was no reason, except spite.

‘Where did they take them?’ Catherine hissed.

The man shook his head and looked as though he wanted the earth to swallow him up. She shook hers too, and, without thanking the man, moved soundlessly back towards Charles and Christine and Owain. Of course they’d all been straining to catch each whispered word. Owain was aware of the raised-eyebrow look that passed between the two royal children: he thought it was a look of helplessness, but also of deep, shared shame.

Then, suddenly, Catherine ran off, alone, back through the bushes, towards peace. And before he realised he was doing it, Owain was running too, past the others, away from the fighting, after her.

Her shoulders were shaking when he caught her up. She was leaning against a tree, with her head cradled in her arms.

He put an arm on her shoulder and pulled her against his chest. She was smaller and softer than he’d realised; she scarcely came up to his shoulder. She smelled of crushed grass as well as rose oil. Her skin, under the raggedy cloth, was soft. She was trembling. She buried her face in his doublet.

He murmured, as softly as if he were calming a horse, ‘Don’t cry … don’t cry.’ He was trembling too. He let his lips brush the top of her head. His blood was racing. There was nothing he wanted more than for her to raise her face to him, so he could look into her eyes … so he could …

But when she did look up, her eyes, behind their tears, were full of what they’d just seen. She burst out, bitterly: ‘I wish, I wish, I could go to England … and get away from them all … everyone hating each other … and the fights … so many fights … and us, being scared … hiding behind things … no one telling us anything … we’re always so scared …’

She burrowed back into his chest, holding him very tight – for comfort, he realised uncomfortably; his mind feeling relieved beyond measure that he hadn’t followed the overwhelming instinct of a moment before to put his lips to hers, however much his own rebellious body still wanted him to. Now the sobs that came out of her were fierce and angry, racking her whole body. He heard more indistinct words. He thought he heard: ‘… I don’t want to be!’ and ‘… just sitting and waiting all the time …’ and ‘… helpless!’

Full of appalled pity, he thought: I didn’t know … didn’t know at all … I just thought we were all happy here …

Gently, trying not to betray how hard it felt to separate the length of his body from hers, he removed her arms from around his chest and stepped back.

There was a rustling behind them. Catherine snuffled bravely. It wouldn’t do to be crying when Christine stepped out of those bushes. But her wet green eyes were still on his. He held her gaze. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, and gave him a heart-rending smile; ‘I shouldn’t have …’ She gulped. ‘But it’s so unbearable; knowing that Louis will take his revenge; and then she’ll take hers … it never ends …’ She stopped herself. She tried to smile again. She muttered, ‘Thank you.’

By the time Christine pushed through into their clearing, followed by Charles, Catherine was dabbing at her face with her sleeve, composing herself; and Owain was standing helplessly two paces away, watching, seeing her misery, wondering how he could have believed they were all so happy.

It was Christine who broke the little group’s silence. ‘Come,’ she said, touching Catherine’s arm, ‘let’s go down to the river, all of us.’

Charles nodded too. The look on that odd, pinched little face – as desolate as any feeling Owain remembered – brought a lump to the older boy’s throat. ‘Let’s show Owain the embankments your wise grandfather built,’ Christine said in a soothing voice: an invitation to forget. ‘And I’ll tell you about the trip Owain’s coming on with me, tomorrow.’

It was a frail enough thread to hang a new mood on. But they grasped at it; trying to lift themselves up on it. ‘Where to?’ Charles said, falling into step beside Christine.

She smiled fondly down at his miserable face, rewarding his effort. ‘Poissy,’ Christine replied, and, even in the gloom of this moment, the name filled her heart with light. Poissy, a place apart from worldly troubles; Poissy, as close as you could get to Paradise on earth …

‘To see your Marie?’ Catherine asked, falling into step beside Owain. She was trying to make her voice matter-of-fact, as Christine would want. But she couldn’t help sounding left out.

‘So it will be just us here,’ she went on, and Owain could hear wistfulness in her voice, and perhaps fear.

‘For a couple of days,’ Christine replied briskly. However disturbing the scene they’d just witnessed, nothing was going to stop her going to Poissy.

Her answer didn’t reassure Catherine. Turning to her younger brother, and jerking her head back in the direction of the voices, the Princess continued her thought as if Christine hadn’t spoken. She added, with a grimace: ‘On our own … with them.’