Читать книгу Blood Royal - Vanora Bennett - Страница 11

There was a buzz of conversation behind and in front. But in the middle of the line of pilgrims clip-clopping away from Paris – strangers, talking to the people they were travelling with, or those they’d met at the saddling-up point at the Saint-Germain gate at dawn – two were silent. Owain, behind Christine, looking at her straight, thin back without being aware of doing so, was remembering the tears sparkling on Catherine’s eyelashes yesterday.

He was reproaching himself for not being able simply to feel concern for Catherine and her unhappiness. But he couldn’t help himself. They’d glittered like diamonds, those tears. He would treasure the memory forever. As the Poissy pilgrims passed between tree trunks, under boughs crossing high above, the broken glitters of sun and whispers of green reminded him of snatches of song drifting down from the heights: a living cathedral; the whole natural world giving praise.

She’d touched him. She’d burrowed her face against his chest. She’d let him cradle her in his arms. He’d felt the breath rise and fall in her. She’d confided in him.

All night he’d thought of nothing else but that moment; all evening, through supper, instead of reading; all morning. He’d woken up to the thought of Catherine. She filled his mind now.

Owain had always thought he’d known what unhappiness was. In his mind it had looked like the war he’d known: familiar people disappearing; living, always, with fear and loneliness; knowing things you loved were gone forever, or soon would be. Knowing there was no guarantee of safety or security; that the roof could be burned from over your head, or an arrow lodge in your heart, at any moment. But yesterday, looking into Catherine’s eyes, he’d realised how naive that had been. Unhappiness could have a quite different aspect, could exist even in surroundings of the most settled luxury. Could be Catherine, choking on a sob in a palace. He could have guessed she was unhappy; that Charles was, too. The quietness Christine kept talking about – which he hadn’t seen as clearly as she had; they’d both wanted to talk to him, after all – their timid air and neglected clothes and street-urchin hunger. There’d always been something wrong, if Owain had only had eyes to see.

Now Owain had started to see, he burned with the desire to talk to her more intimately about what her life was really like. He knew so little. He might be able to help, as he’d found ways to help himself through his own past unhappiness. If only he understood more. Were her mother and brother usually so poisonous and hateful with each other? Did they often fight in public? If so, what did other people at the French court think of the feud? Who supported whom? Why – when there were so many siblings and cousins of the blood royal – did no one take the two youngest royal children under their wing and protect them? And what did Catherine know about her father’s illness, which she and Charles were so vague about? He longed for her to tell him; he could imagine her drawing closer, as he laid a hand on hers; looking up at him from under lashes glittering with tears.

He thought. He rode in silence. The sun rose high. They stopped to eat. The horses stamped and snorted into their buckets. The riders, having attended to them, went into the bushes to relieve themselves, or stood around chatting, or sat down and delved into their packages of bread and meat. Owain didn’t eat, or talk. He just sat quietly on the fallen tree trunk he’d chosen, beside Christine, not touching the piece of bread she put in his hand, and remembered the glitter of the tears, so close he could have kissed them away.

He didn’t even look when one of the other pilgrims came up to him and Christine. It took him a long moment to become aware of Christine’s sudden animation at his side: the kerchief falling back, the look of horror, the rush to her feet, the panicky glances from side to side, the miserable subsiding back to her perch on the tree trunk.

He looked up.

Then he blinked, and blinked again. He couldn’t believe the evidence of his eyes, but every time he opened them he still saw the same thing.

Standing before them, in a serviceable brown travelling cloak and a kerchief as plain and anonymous as Christine’s own, was Catherine.

There was a scared, defiant smile on her face.

Nothing happened for a long moment – just silence.

‘I thought you’d have noticed me before now,’ Catherine said, trying unsuccessfully to sound casual. Her eyes were fixed on Christine; but she’d had time to give Owain a look, too, and he was glowing privately at that new treasure. ‘I didn’t think you’d let me get this far.’

Christine was slumped down on the tree trunk as though not trusting her legs to carry her if she tried to get up again.

Her mouth opened, then shut. She stared at Catherine. Owain, keeping very quiet and still beside her, realised that, unusually, even Christine – confronted with a rebellious, runaway princess of the blood, dressed like a shepherdess, wandering unescorted through the wildwood – was lost for words. He felt for her. She’d be right to be angry. It wouldn’t help anyone if she realised how indescribably happy the sight of Catherine was making him.

Eventually, Christine muttered: ‘For the love of God …’ and then, with her face darkening into the beginning of a muted fury, ‘… what are you doing here?’

Catherine just shrugged; almost a wriggle. She wasn’t cowed. She said, still defiantly: ‘I took a horse. Why not? Why should I stay when I know what’s going to be happening there?’

Christine stifled a sigh. Owain knew, from their own conversation last night, that Christine and Jean were also afraid of what might happen next now open conflict seemed to be breaking out again between the Prince and his mother. They’d all looked so scared – pale and miserable even in the yellow flickers of night light, seeming smaller than usual with their flinching, hunching shoulders, making him realise, uncomfortably, that the Paris they lived in wasn’t the sunlit, calm place he’d imagined. They’d talked for hours about it, worrying away at the possibility that the quarrel might be Louis’ pretext to call Burgundy back to Paris with his army, to keep the Queen under control. And if Queen Isabeau’s worst enemy came near Paris with ten thousand men, how would she respond?

Still. There were so many things Christine could choose to be angry about, Owain thought. The danger of riding off into the woods (though she’d known he would be there, with his sword; she hadn’t really put herself at risk). The disobedience, and the panic she’d cause at the palace – though, he realised, now he’d spent so much time there himself, it was unlikely anyone would notice she’d gone; the two children ran wild and didn’t seem to have a single servant to tend to them.

‘Because of Charles,’ Christine said, in her most terrible voice, with ice-cold eyes, picking the one argument that, Owain realised, would be certain to make Catherine feel guilty. ‘You’ve left Charles alone in the middle of one of these … upheavals. A child. And a child who has nightmares. He’ll be worried about where you are. And he’ll be terrified to be facing … all that … on his own.’

Catherine looked uncertain, but only for a moment. Then she stuck out her chin and stared back at Christine. ‘He’ll be all right,’ she said, with a brave attempt at carelessness. ‘I couldn’t tell him because he’d only have wanted to come too … but I told the Saracen to tell him I was with you.’

If she thought she’d get praise for that, she was mistaken. The Saracen was one of the Queen’s most outlandish ladies-in-waiting, a hostage from the Crusades, gifted to the Queen long ago, so silent and empty-eyed, padding round the palace corridors, that the children hardly knew whether she understood French, or even knew how to talk. Catherine went on, faltering a little: ‘So he’ll know I’m not lost.’

The battle of eyes went on: Christine’s full of accusation. ‘Well,’ Catherine finished, finally dropping her gaze, scuffing at her toes, ‘I don’t care. I had to get away.’

She glanced at Owain. Perhaps she saw sympathy on his face. She flashed a grateful half-smile his way.

Owain saw Christine catch that flash of warmth. Then he saw a tiny, surprised frown pull at the older woman’s forehead, as if the first hint of suspicion was dawning that Owain’s presence might have been part of the reason Catherine had wanted … Christine looked searchingly at Owain for a moment herself. He kept his face still and surprised. He was relieved when, with a little shake of the head, as if she was putting aside an unworthy thought, she turned her full furious attention back to the girl digging her toes uncomfortably into the carpet of dead leaves underfoot.

‘We should all turn around now, and go back to Paris,’ she said icily. She added, in a different voice, full of a misery even she couldn’t quite hide: ‘I can come back and see my daughter next year.’

Owain remembered the softness of her eyes when she’d asked him to come to Poissy with her. The pity of it caught at his heart. He couldn’t let her miss this visit.

‘We can’t do that,’ he said, putting his hand on his sword hilt, feeling a man. ‘It wouldn’t be safe for just three of us to strike off back through the forest. If Catherine has left word in Paris of where she is, it would be much more sensible to stick with the group; come back tomorrow as we planned.’

For different reasons, both pairs of eyes now fixed on him were full of quiet relief. The trip need not be cancelled. He’d given a plausible rationale for riding on. He nodded reassuringly at them both, thanking God that neither of them knew how absurdly excited he felt at the adventure opening up before him – the prospect of hours in the woods, on horseback, with Catherine; and a pilgrim’s supper at an inn, later; and another long ride back to Paris tomorrow, following his lady.

Christine didn’t wait for any more discussion of whether they should cancel their journey. She just moved swiftly on to considering what should be said about the trip once they were back in Paris. She said: ‘I suppose we should say you just took it into your head to come to Poissy to visit your sister.’

There was no anger in Christine’s voice any more. She’d accepted Catherine’s presence. She was making the best of it. So there was no reason for Catherine to demur. Yet, at those words, the Princess frowned and fidgeted, and shook her head, and said sulkily: ‘Why? I’ve never even met my sister.’

Owain stared at her in wild surmise. Catherine clearly hadn’t the least wish to meet an unknown sister at the end of this journey. But what had she expected to be doing at Poissy, if not going into the women-only confines of the nunnery with Christine? Not … He blinked, feeling as blinded by the possibility dawning on him as if he’d stared straight at the sun … Not staying outside all day … sitting at some travellers’ inn … with him?

Christine’s patience, always limited, was at an end. ‘Well, you’re about to meet her now,’ she snapped. ‘Unless you want to tell your mother you just ran off to get away from her.’ And, standing up, she flicked crumbs off her skirts and called, in her most imperious voice: ‘Owain! Come; put away the food and get the horses untied. And bring Catherine’s up. We’ll be off in a minute.’

The abbey was inside a great wall that stretched for miles in every direction, in a landscape that seemed almost impossibly green and alive with birdsong and happiness.

The light was golden. There were deer between the trees on this side of the wall, and fishponds. Owain could see clusters of houses that must belong to the nuns’ male confessors and spiritual advisers, the doctors, the financial counsellors, the overseers, the cooks, the bakers, and the servants. Through the gate, he glimpsed more rooftops and the tall towers of a church inside the enclosure. He could hear the buzzing of bees. He knew he’d never see more. Men weren’t allowed inside the wall. His journey, and that of the other men who’d ridden with the women, ended here.

One by one, the men pulled up, dismounted, chatted to the gatehouse keepers. A couple of them, who knew the ways of this place, carried on down the lane that must lead to the town and the inn.

The women hardly seemed to notice. Their minds were on their meetings; on beloved faces hidden behind the walls. Their yearning eyes were fixed ahead. Their horses were almost trotting. They processed through the gate without looking back.

Owain stayed where he was, very still, shading his eyes to watch the women’s receding backs. He didn’t dismount until after one small head, with its cloak hood up, had turned briefly round from the gatehouse to look his way.

The women heard Mass.

Christine had forgotten the anger that had consumed her when she’d caught sight of Catherine. She couldn’t imagine feeling angry any more, not now she was listening to the soaring soprano voices. There was light pouring down from the window. She was happier than she remembered being anywhere else. Her heart was full of Marie’s embrace just now, and of the joy in those cornflower-blue eyes. She could still smell the pure innocence of her daughter’s skin.

There was a partition in the church, separating the nuns from the lay people of the town and beyond. But she was burning with the knowledge that her Marie’s shining little face, peeping out over the black habit trimmed with white fur that all the nuns wore, was just behind the barrier. Marie was probably letting her eyes rise, like Christine’s, to the ceiling, to gaze at the midnight-blue arches with their golden stars.

They were so pretty, all those girls with roses in their cheeks, all dressed alike.

She had to overcome her selfish sadness at only seeing her daughter once a year. Poissy was the closest you could come to Heaven on Earth. Marie was blessed. It had been right to bring her here.

Catherine would have known her sister anywhere. There were fifteen years separating them, but the unlined face bending towards hers, with a benign stranger’s curiosity, had the same long nose, green eyes and high cheekbones Catherine saw in her own mirror every day. They were of the same blood.

All Catherine had really hoped for from this journey was to have some time to talk to Owain. After yesterday, there was nothing else she wanted in the world but to pour out her heart to him. She wanted to tell him about Maman’s and Louis’ quarrels; about how Louis behaved to Marguerite to punish her for being her father’s daughter; about the butchers breaking in last year and how frightened she and Charles still were, especially in the night. She’d seen kindness in his eyes. He would listen.

Yet, for a while, on the road, after Christine had ordered her to meet Marie de Valois, Catherine had also let herself start to imagine that this saintly stranger sister might approve of their mother’s notion of marrying her to the King of England. The quarrel yesterday had brought the question of escape into her head again, more urgently than ever before. She’d have been grateful for a word of encouragement.

But now she realised that wasn’t going to happen. Her sister’s face had taken on a fastidious look as soon as Catherine had mentioned the English marriage – as if she’d smelled something bad. And she was still shaking her head.

‘Dishonourable,’ Marie said simply when Catherine finished. ‘A princess of the blood royal can’t marry the son of a usurper. Don’t let them bully you. Just say no.’

They seemed to do without flowery turns of phrase in the nunnery, Catherine thought resentfully.

‘The English have already tried this trick once, with Isabelle,’ Marie said. ‘She said no. You can too.’

Then, unexpectedly, she grinned. The lively mischief that came into her face made her look younger, and even more like Catherine. Catherine stared. She hadn’t expected a nun to look so cheeky.

‘Even I’ve said no to one of Maman’s mad marriage plans,’ Marie said, and she was clearly enjoying the memory. ‘Did you know?’

That was astonishing enough to make Catherine forget her disappointment. No one stood up to their mother; and if they did, they suffered. She looked at Marie’s laughing face with new respect. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

All she knew was what everyone knew – that Marie had been promised to the Church at birth, in the hope that giving a child to the nuns would please God enough to make him cure the King of his illness in exchange. God hadn’t kept his side of the bargain. But, at four, Marie had entered the nunnery anyway. And, at eight, she’d chosen to stay at Poissy forever, and had taken her vows.

But it seemed that wasn’t the end of the story. For when Marie was twelve, the Queen had changed her mind.

Marie said: ‘She just turned up here, one fine day, with our uncle of Orleans, and told me to leave with her. She’d decided to marry off one of her daughters to the Duke of Bar. And I was the right age, and not married. So she’d taken it into her head that the bride should be me.’

She laughed merrily.

Remembering the hard beds and endless prayer that must be Marie’s daily lot, Catherine thought: I’d have done it, without a second thought.

Perhaps Marie realised what she was thinking. The deputy prioress stopped laughing and said, more seriously: ‘When I thought about going back to court, I knew there was nothing I wanted less. Everything I’d known before coming here to Poissy had been so … dirty. Once I’d come here and known the peace of God, how could I go back?’

Catherine had always been told that life at court before the civil war had been civilised perfection; their uncle of Orleans a paragon of charm and intellect. She hardly remembered him. He’d been very tall. He’d jumped her on his knee. He sang. He’d had a light laugh and amused eyes, and a weak mouth. She still loved what little she remembered of him. But she could hear the ring of truth in Marie’s frank voice, too. It couldn’t have been so wonderful before, after all. Even as a small child, Marie had been searching for an escape.

‘I told Maman she’d brought me here, and I was dedicated to God, and I should stay. She didn’t want to hear. They spent hours trying to bully me into leaving. But I said: “You’ve made a gift to God. You can’t take it back.” In the end they went away. They hadn’t given up, though. They sent Papa, as soon as he got better, to try again. Dear Papa; he was sweeter than they were. He knew it was my right to choose; so he just asked me whether I would consent to leave. But what could I say? I told him, too: “I’ve promised to be the bride of Christ. I will hold to my vow unless you find me a better and more powerful husband.”’

She laughed, a little sadly. ‘I miss Papa, you know. I pray for him. But I couldn’t obey him. I knew he’d forgive me in the end; Maman too, she loves us all, really, God forgive her. But my conscience wouldn’t let me.’

Catherine sat, stunned, letting it all sink in.

‘You can say no to Maman too.’ Marie drove her point home. ‘Don’t let her dishonour you. She won’t mind; not really; she’s always changing her mind. He is too; it’s all whim and fancy with them.’

Crushed, Catherine faltered: ‘But … if she does insist?’

Marie’s face shone with the simplicity of virtue. She opened her arms. ‘Then come to God – here.’

Here they came, with their heads drooping like cut flowers pulled out of water: the women, returning from their visit with dragging feet, reluctantly rejoining the outside world.

Owain and the two gatemen who were to walk them to the inn, holding torches, got up. The first bats were fluttering in the luminous sky. The air smelled of cut grass. There was a clanking of keys.

Before he could make out which of the women was Catherine, or Christine, another female form came flying over the lawns behind them. A thin figure in black and white, calling softly, urgently, ‘Mother!’

All the women turned back. Owain could feel the painful hope rekindled in them.

But it was Christine who rushed into the black-and-white girl’s arms. The other women turned away.

Owain was outside the gate. But he still heard – everyone heard – Marie de Castel’s voice break as she muttered, ‘Please come back tomorrow. Just for an hour.’

Christine’s arms were around her daughter, rhythmically stroking her shoulders; she was kissing the top of her daughter’s head. The gateman moved closer, but he stopped when Christine looked up. He didn’t dare intervene. ‘Of course,’ Christine told her daughter softly. ‘Of course.’

Mother and daughter looked at each other with no more words, as if memorising each other in the failing light. Then Christine said, more brightly: ‘Won’t you miss dinner if you’re late?’ and, when her daughter nodded, ‘Run … I’ll be back … I promise … run now!’

But her hand followed Marie’s shoulder away. Even when her daughter was just a shadow again, flitting towards the refectory, Christine’s arm was still outstretched and her eyes tender as bruises.

She turned to the lantern man, and said, with painful dignity, ‘I’m sorry to have kept you,’ and, again without looking at anyone else, stepped forward into the twilight.

Christine walked ahead, overwhelmed by her thoughts.

She didn’t even think of Catherine. Didn’t see the child’s face brighten when Owain appeared beside her. Didn’t see them loiter at the back of the group, out of the torchlight, as the shadows deepened. Didn’t hear the low-pitched conversation begin. Didn’t see the solicitous way he took her arm to help her over a tree root.

Christine recovered her poise as soon as she got inside by the firelight; it had only been unbearable while she was actually in that heartbreakingly lovely landscape, within touching distance of her daughter. Now that the pilgrims and their friends were pouring the nuns’ gift of wine and tucking into the hearty inn food and talking, she was perfectly capable of smiling and chatting with them again. She sat between Catherine and Owain at the trestles. Catherine was quiet, with pink in her cheeks. Owain served them both with food and drink; a good, trustworthy boy. Christine let him talk quietly to Catherine. Christine was thinking: I will see Marie in the morning.

She took Catherine into the abbey with her the next morning. She would have been failing in her duties as a chaperone if she’d left the child outside with Owain and the horses. But she didn’t want the Princess underfoot while she was with Marie, either. So, once inside, she sent her into the abbey church to ask for a blessing.

Five minutes later, Catherine came out of the church alone, and out of the abbey grounds, through the gatehouse. Owain was leaning against a fence, in a shady corner, with his back to the abbey, whistling. He was watching the soft wisps of pink-gold cloud creep across the blue of the sky. He didn’t notice her come up behind him and put her hands on each side of his lean warm back. ‘Boo,’ she said, and felt him startle; but not enough to dislodge her hands.

Still with his back to her, still with her hands on him over the fence, he said: ‘That was quick.’ His voice was trembling.

‘Meet you round here,’ he went on; and she flew along the fence to find a way to the other side.

They found a place to stand, side by side, where the fence stopped at a tree. They leaned against the tree, looking up, both gripped with a euphoric feeling of anticipation. They’d talked for so long last night, but there was still everything to find out. Neither of them meant it to happen now, as their arms touched; it just did. ‘Listen,’ Owain said; just to keep her there. ‘That’s a skylark.’

She shifted, and more of her yielding warmth was touching him. After a long moment, she moved away. He breathed out. But she turned herself round to face him. She was standing so close.

‘How long will you stay at the University, do you think?’ she asked softly.

Dizzily, daringly, he whispered back – longing to be a prince who could aspire to ride her off into the grey-green hills, knowing he was longing uselessly, now that everything back there in Wales had turned out the way it had, and he was no one, yet not caring about the futility of that longing because of the blood singing in his veins … ‘Until you go to London?’

There were tears in Christine’s eyes as she came out through the gatehouse. They made her vision run and stream.

So, for a moment, she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing in the shadows under a tree outside, where the dappling of light and bark and grass and leaves was so confusing anyway.

Then she knew.

She called, in panic, ‘Catherine! Owain!’, and watched the shifting shape that had been both of them disentangle itself and separate into two bodies, two sets of arms and legs; two downturned blushing faces.

There was no point in saying anything. There had been many disappointments in her life. She knew better than to let her anger out at once. She needed time to think. She lowered her own head to unknot the horses’ reins.

She mounted.

‘Come,’ she said coolly, not meeting their eyes. ‘We’ll catch the others up if we hurry.’

And she spurred her horse on.

Christine rode and, in the rhythm of the horses’ hoofs, thought. As the miles slipped by, she let go of her first furious thoughts – that her trust had been betrayed; that Owain, whom she’d come to think of almost as a son, or a disciple, had set out deliberately to besmirch the purity of a princess; and that Catherine had inherited her immoral mother’s sluttishness if she was willing to ignore her royal blood and the prize of her virginity to satisfy a casual lust.

Still, it took many hundreds of paces through the forest **before Christine was able to understand that she was more angry with herself than she was with either of these children. It was she who’d thrown them together, after all, thinking that Owain would show the younger children how to live through unhappiness. She looked now at the two backs swaying ahead of her; the two bowed young heads. So friendless, both of them, and so beautiful: both of them so strangely left out of the life they found themselves living, worlds emptied of like-minded people; forced into silence. They’d started to talk to each other … She should have realised what kind of comfort they’d naturally find themselves seeking from each other. They were young … She had no one to blame for this but herself. Thank God she’d been able to nip it in the bud. No consequences. No one need know.

In another life – if Catherine had not been a princess of the blood, descended from Charlemagne and the kings of Troy, the purity of her line a sacred pact with God going back to the dawn of time – Christine, like anyone, might have rejoiced at this outcome. A love between these two young people, if there’d been nothing else at stake, might have been thought beautiful.

She sighed, and kicked her horse out of its trance. That was not to be. Best stick to reality.

Owain rode in front so no one could see the savagery on his face.

He ignored the branches slapping at him; he kept his horse nervously trotting and skittering. He didn’t care about its frothing mouth today.

Inside his head, he was conducting a furious exchange with Christine. Inside his head, she’d become every dismissive Englishman he’d ever encountered. ‘What about my blood?’ his own interior voice was shouting. ‘I am descended from Ednyfed Fychan, Seneschal of the Kingdom of Gwynedd under Llywelyn the Great. I am descended from Iestyn ap Gwyrgant, the last King of Gwent. My family are the barons of Hendwr and the lords of Penmynydd and Englefield and Iscoed and Gwynioneth, the leaders of Anglesey. My blood is as noble as any. I grew up the cousin of a king! I could have married any princess I liked … back then … three or four years ago, when everything was still possible …’

But he knew it was futile to protest.

He could hear the answers, crushing in their finality. ‘A conquered race now. You’re no one now.’ And: ‘Even if you were the Prince of Wales himself – even if the Welsh weren’t ruled by the English – you still wouldn’t be good enough for a princess of France.’

Catherine knew this was the end of Owain. He’d go … Her head drooped lower. And so would hope.

What a fool she’d been. What a fool. She should have … She realised that what she should be thinking was that she should have avoided letting herself feel this for a man she couldn’t marry. He wasn’t royal. She shouldn’t have seen him as a man at all; only as a retainer. But all she actually felt was hot-cheeked shame that she’d been stupid enough to let Christine catch them.

She’d been shaking – shaking with happiness. Just for that moment; drowning in honey.

No, for weeks she’d been happy. Being with Owain was like being let out of prison. Other princes and princesses had a life at court – balls, and dresses, and expenses, and flirtations. But that hadn’t started for Catherine and Charles; and, even for those admitted to it, court life only seemed to exist, these days, in muted, miniature form, behind closed doors. The children had always seemed to live in great wastelands of silence: with only the warmth of their friendship with each other and with Christine to sustain them. Then, suddenly, Catherine had found a new friend she could talk frankly to. They’d found a way to talk to each other. It wasn’t just the kiss. If she didn’t see Owain again, they wouldn’t be able to talk together any more.

It took her breath away. Her mind shied away from the thought that she might not see Owain again. She stared at the pommel in front of her and tried not to think. Her blood was racing.

They were almost at Paris when the trees thinned and they came out into fields. Dusk was falling. A ghostly moon was rising in the luminous sky; the evening star nearby.

She spurred her horse on. There’d be a moment, at least, before Christine caught on; caught up.

He turned as she came level with him. His glance was strained and desperate.

‘Venus … your star,’ he murmured very quietly, and her heart turned over at the knowledge that they were both still playing the game of not disturbing Christine. His face, as he’d turned, had been so pale; so angry. But now, with her here, for one moment more, he was burning with the torturing fire of hope. ‘I don’t know what I can promise,’ he said. ‘But I’ll always …’

He paused, looking for something he could do; something he could say. Into the silence came the sound of Christine, just behind, clicking her tired horse into life.

Owain closed his eyes, put his hand on his temples, and composed his white face into skull-like immobility.

Then, very suddenly, without looking back, he cantered off.

Catherine saw the distant little figure by the Queen’s house start running as soon as he saw her horse. But she ignored it, and kicked the horse on into a trot, straight towards the royal stables. There’d be time enough to talk to Charles later. She needed to compose herself first; to stop feeling so crushed by guilt; to try and erase the memory of Christine’s wounded eyes, and Owain’s bent head, and the silence.

But she heard Charles’ pounding footsteps go on racing towards her. He threw himself into her arms as soon as she had her feet on the ground.

He buried himself in her, shaking. His face was hot and red and snotty. His eyes were swollen.

‘I told the Saracen to tell you I’d gone!’ she cried, lashing out with her tongue. ‘She knew!’

That startled him. He looked up with wide eyes. ‘She did tell me,’ he snuffled, warily.

‘Then why are you crying?’ she hissed, still full of guilty fury.

His eyes filled with tears again. He hadn’t been panicking because she was gone. He hadn’t expected her to shout at him when she got back, either. She’d got it all wrong.

She took a deep breath and tried again. She put her arms round his shaking shoulders and rocked him to and fro while he cried himself out. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, over and over again. ‘I didn’t mean …’ When his sobs quietened, she said gently: ‘What happened, darling, tell me?’

He fixed big, scared eyes on her. ‘I’ve got to get married!’ he cried.

She stared back. ‘Who?’ she said, without expression.

‘Marie of Anjou,’ he whimpered, and his face puckered up again.

Catherine could see why. Their ten-year-old cousin Marie was solemn and very grand; always too worried about spoiling her beautiful and expensive clothes to want to play. ‘Big-nose!’ Charles wailed. ‘I don’t even like her!’

But Catherine could see why her mother would want this marriage. Marie’s father was one of the most important of the French princes who opposed the Duke of Burgundy. Known as the King of Sicily, Marie’s father was just back from years abroad, fighting over his various Italian land claims, to formally swear his loyalty to the princes allied, under the Count of Armagnac, against the common enemy, Burgundy. They’d need to keep him sweet with a good marriage (and what could be better than a marriage to the King’s youngest son?). The situation was more dangerous than ever. She’d heard the pilgrim gossip on the road. Louis had written to her cousin of Burgundy, denouncing the Queen for making wrongful arrests of his men – and inviting Burgundy and his army back to Paris to save him from his mother. There was more trouble brewing, for sure.

Thinking aloud, she told Charles: ‘It’s not so bad … you might get to bring your bride here … we could be together still … and if you have to go to them, it’s only over the road to the Anjou hotel …’

‘No,’ he squealed, back in his panic, burrowing once more into her arms. ‘That’s the whole point! Mother says I’ll have to go away! Right after the betrothal! To her mother’s court! To Angers! I’ve been looking for you all day! But you weren’t here! There was no one to tell! There was no one to tell!’

She clung to him, shocked; a child again too, feeling her brother’s warmth, committing it to memory. Angers was two days’ ride south-west. She’d never see Charles if he was there. She bitterly regretted leaving him alone here, now she was forced to imagine him gone for good. She didn’t want him to go. They were safe together. They were allies. They trusted each other; loved each other. There was no one else left. Owain would be gone too. There would be no one she could talk to. She shut her eyes.

She didn’t want to be left behind, on her own.