Wife to Henry V: A Novel Read online

  “And Louis refused,” Catherine said contemptuous.

  “Of course he refused. D'you think I'd let him accept? A boy who spits blood at the slightest exertion and that man ten years older, hard as nails and pickled in blood?”

  “A man,” Catherine said softly.

  “A man, a man!” Isabeau lost her temper. “A man—and that's all. It would take a god to break through to Calais.”

  “Yet he will break through,” Catherine said; but she did not say it aloud.

  CHAPTER V

  He had got through. Better for France, Isabeau thought, if they had let him through, pretended the army had not found him. Instead they had forced the lion to turn at Agincourt. With his handful of men, with the dysentery and the hunger, the lion had turned. And the chivalry of France was broken.

  And now what? Her shrewd brain went unhurried to work.

  Her husband was sick; with the disaster at Agincourt madness was on him again. And what courage Louis had—she had seen it crumble and break in his face the day she had forced him to refuse the duel. He, too, looked a sick man.

  The cool, unloving brain assessed him.

  In bad condition; worn by his lecheries, wounded in his vanity and in his courage. Any slight sickness might carry him off. Better for France that way; better, maybe, for himself—he was too like his father.

  But then, John? Her second son might be even worse for France; he was completely under Burgundy's influence—Burgundy who hadn't so much as shown his face at Agincourt; neither he nor his son, Michelle's husband. John and Louis, feeble, both. Louis, at least, she might hope to sway, watch the event, play party against party. But John—married to Burgundy's niece, educated by Burgundy's sister—one could do nothing with John!

  Oh but she was tired of the plotting and the planning; tired of playing Queen and King, too. A woman's power should come from the game of love, not from politics. But there was no one else, no one.

  * * *

  He had got through. The joybells were ringing the length and breadth of England, ringing for Agincourt. Queen Johanne heard them sleeping and waking. But Johanne must hide her grief.

  Though her son had been taken at Agincourt—Arthur born of her body, prisoner in the hands of her dearest son Henry; though her young daughter was widowed and her best and dearest slain, she must give no sign; queens must hide their grief. So she would ride in the great procession, offer her thanks at St. Paul's, speak her words of praise, of joy, lest some mischief-maker, unforgiving of her foreign blood, inform the King. She must not offend her dearest son. She must forever bolster that vanity of which God knew he had enough and to spare. Oh, he could play humble but she knew him, she knew him!

  The women tired her hair, set the head-dress and the flowing veil; put about her neck the great jewelled chain...and all the time she smiled.

  * * *

  He had got through. By God's grace and his own courage he had got through. They had broken the crown upon his head, cloven it to the helmet beneath. Very well, he would set the crown of France in its place. Let them look to it!

  He sat studying the names of the slain at Agincourt; the names of the prisoners their ransoms already estimated. The table was littered with his lists. He looked across at Charles of Orléans sitting dejected.

  So this was the fellow who had married the young Isabella; who had climbed to his poet's glory lamenting her death...and had married again as soon as might be! He was glad Charles was alive; glad to hold him in the strength of his hand. A miracle Charles was not dead—a sign from God to His Soldier. He had seen, with his own eyes, his men drag the body from the pile of the dead and begin to strip it before throwing it into the great grave where Frenchmen lay higgledy-piggledy. And then he had heard it, the long-drawn sigh of the spirit lamenting its return. He had commanded the men to stop; they would have gone on with the work, thrown the living to lie among the dead, had they had their way.

  And now Charles sat in the royal tent, his face turned away, refusing to eat, willing himself to die.

  “Cheer yourself, man,” and he had feared Charles would die, indeed. “It's better to be alive than dead!” So he said, knowing as well as Charles that it is better to be dead though your body lie naked to the wolves, than to languish in a strange land.

  He sent Charles a friendly smile; Charles did not return it, knowing that beneath the friendly face the cold mind watched to squeeze every drop of advantage from the living and the dead.

  “There is wealth and to spare here!” Henry slapped upon the papers and saw how Charles brightened at the mere thought of ransom. But there would be no ransom for him—now or ever. Charles stood too near the throne. Let him cool his ardent blood in prison; Isabella lay in a colder place.

  Charles, watching still, knew his fate.

  “You should have left me to die,” he said.

  Henry lifted an eye from his lists. “What's wrong with living? England's a fair place. And a peaceful one. You may write your rhymes to your heart's content.” He was spiteful, a little, remembering Orléans' lament for Isabella—The Obsequies for Madame; remembering, again, how soon Orléans had taken a new wife. “And,” he was smooth above his spite, “the ladies of England are kind.”

  Charles said nothing. Henry could see how bitterness choked him. But it would not last long. Henry knew his sort! The poet's alchemy would transmute bitterness into the sweetness of song.

  * * *

  He had got through. Catherine sat in her bower and thought her thoughts. To whom could she speak? Not to her father wild with the fear that drove its iron wedge through his poor brain. Not to her mother sick in her bed, plotting and planning with fever-bright eyes. Certainly not to Louis...dying they said. Poisoned by his mother—Burgundy's wicked tongue wagging. Poisoned by Burgundy—that was yet another tale. Well, they might be right there! But...dying; poor, silly, idle Louis!

  She would have liked to see him before he died, say she was sorry for laughing at him. But greater than her desire to comfort was her fear of the dying.

  Her father, mad; her mother sick; her brother dying. But still Catherine could pluck upon the lute. A hard winter and food at famine prices. But still she could sing as she plucked. Why not? The blood ran warm in her veins; there were furs for her bed; and if food was scarce in Paris there was still enough for the lady Catherine. She was the pawn who might become Queen...who would become Queen.

  These days, time heavy on her hands, she practised with passion the trick of willing herself to beauty; noted the charming carriage of the head; the brilliance of the eye through its darkened curtain of lashes; the carnation colour; the proud, sweet curve of the mouth-it was a curve she had cultivated these last few months.

  The pawn who would be Queen. The wheel turns, Michelle had said. Turn wheel, turn.

  * * *

  He had won through. Louis turned his fleshly body in the bed, muttering, mumbling. Agincourt had been lost; but he no longer knew it. Soon he would die; but he did not know that either. He only knew that he was tired and cold; and that more than anything he was frightened. Frightened—of what? He did not know. He wanted to speak, to tell someone; the thoughts ran in his head.

  ...Ever since he was a child he had been afraid; afraid because he couldn't sit a horse without his blood turning to water; couldn't even ride in a litter without the most deadly fatigue; sometimes he fainted. His mother hated him for it, the big woman strong as a horse. She was glad to humiliate him so that the others laughed at him—Michelle and Catherine, in spite of the duty they owed him; yes, and even the little Charles. No wonder a man sought pleasure where he could find it. And if the arms were those of light women, they were kind arms. The worst wrong they had done him was marrying him to Margaret. Not that she was a bad sort of girl. But plain...a young owl with her pale round face and her big eyes. A man needed to rest his eyes on beauty; feel beauty in his arms. But for all that he'd wanted to be kind to her. A man needs to be kind for his soul’s sake. But he couldn't forget
she was Burgundy's spawn. It was like having Burgundy in your bed. Burgundy in your bed! He laughed at that. The priest at his bedside looked up from his missal.

  “Confess...Father! I slept...with...Burgundy.”

  The priest wasn't shocked. He didn't understand. He thought it was the girl you'd meant, not the old man himself. Well it didn't matter...nothing mattered.

  His dying mind led him back again to his dreaming.

  He came to himself in the brief December daylight. It was grey in the room; no warmth; no nicker of fire. Alone. Except for the priest asleep in his chair.

  Why had they left him alone?

  His mother was ill—he remembered now. He had ridden over to see her. He'd been tired as he always was and she'd given him a cup of wine. Afterwards, when he'd got home, he'd spat blood. It hadn't frightened him—nothing new in that! But then it had begun, the agony in his belly, the vomiting, the dreadful purging. That had frightened him; that was new.

  But it was gone now, the pain and the purging. He was just tired...tired.

  He was glad now his mother wasn't here. Always she had beaten him down with whip and tongue, forever talking of duty—she, whose name was a byword! He could have borne it all had he believed her honest. But he hadn't, he hadn't. She was cruel. She had poisoned his life with her unkindness.

  Tears burst through his closed eyes, rolled down his cold cheeks. “Poisoned,” he muttered, “poisoned...”

  The holy Father turned his head.

  ...He didn't want the holy Father; he wanted his own father, his real father; his father was kind. But his father was ill; he was always ill. A bad woman and a mad man...And why was he weeping? For himself? For his father? For France, for France, perhaps?

  He was tired...tired; and it was worse than any pain. He was sinking through the bed and through the floor and into the darkness, down...down.

  Margaret...Margaret. He called her name forgetting he had long discarded her.

  Mother...mother. He began to call, not because he wanted her but because the sound of the word comforted him.

  Mother...mother. And it was dark, dark.

  Mother...mother. His head fell back.

  Louis the child of prayers and hopes dying alone in his nineteenth year; alone and in fear of the dark.

  CHAPTER VI

  Henry was riding through London—his London. Today it was not a mortal city; the rare November sunshine streamed upon saints, upon white virgins; streamed upon high golden towers and gilt angels as though London were Paradise itself.

  It was wonderful and he thanked the people for their love. But the cost! He would have preferred it in the shape of coin to pay for his wars. Did they think all was won? Didn't they understand it would take more than Harfleur, more than Agincourt, even, to win France?

  He halted his horse. A troop of kings had issued from a pavilion, stood bowing before him. They were clad in turbans and loose robes—kings of the East. They let loose a flock of white birds; the birds flew away singing and the kings sang, too. Sing unto the Lord for He has done marvellous things. He looked at their fine silk of Damascus, at the gold leaf spread thick upon their pavilion. What all this cost he should be spending upon his wars!

  Money, money. He needed more ships, more arms, more men; and he was in arrears with his payments already. Money, money. Where was he to get it? Parliament? It might be easier now that he had returned trailing his glory; easier—but not easy. Money. The merchant princes knew how to drive a bargain—it was their trade. But the Holy Church knew how to drive a harder one with God's Soldier. And the rich churchmen who drove their own private bargains were the hardest of all.

  Money, money.

  He rode on smiling, nodding, gracious.

  He must get it from friend and foe alike.

  He was aware of Johanne riding behind him.

  She had lost something of her beauty, he had noticed it that first moment he had seen her again, noticed the lines scored upon the white forehead. Had they come, he had wondered pricked by jealousy, with grief for Arthur her son, now his prisoner? Or had they come for himself—fear because of that terrible march from Harfleur, fear of the trap of Agincourt? Or had they been there all the time and he hadn't noticed them? He had, he supposed, been a little in love with her. Could it be that having seen the picture of Catherine in her pretty youth, the picture sly Isabeau had sent, he had noticed Johanne's wrinkles at last?

  He had not known. But it had flashed through him that the great jewelled S. chain she wore was too grand for a widow.

  He had put the thought from him. One did not despoil a widow—and his father's widow at that! Besides, he had already cut her revenues.

  But now riding in the midst of this costly splendour, more than ever conscious of his desperate need for money, the thought was at him again.

  She was rich; richer than she had any need. Lands and castles north and east, south and west—from Cornwall to Wiltshire, from Wales to Essex; to say nothing of the duchy of Lancaster his father had given her—the duchy that should be his! Yes, she had jewels and revenues above any Queen Dowager, she who had come to his father penniless!

  He tried again to put the thought from him, riding kingly through his city. She had, he reminded himself, been kind to him in all her dealings, generous with time, with trouble...

  ...But not with money.

  The thought would not be driven away. She had struck many a sly bargain with him, slipping in her innocent request in the midst of a loving conversation, turning a small concession into a monopoly. The presents she had made him were ludicrous. For his crowning, two panniers of Breton lampreys! He had been touched at the time, grateful for her kind thought in the midst of her grief at his father's death. He had forgotten she had sent no other gift.

  But now he remembered.

  He hardly recognized St. Paul's churchyard, all gilt towers and flying pennants. The gate had been fitted with niches and in each stood a pretty girl with a cup of gold from which she lightly blew gold leaf towards him.

  Money, money!

  Dismounting, receiving the salute of his eighteen bishops, saluting them in turn, he put his troubles from his mind. The moment belonged to God.

  The Te Deum rose, swelled. He knelt and prayed; kissed the relic, made his offering.

  It was only when he was out in the street once more, riding along the Strand to Westminster that he remembered Johanne again and her meanness.

  And here she was riding beside him, smiling and nodding and waving a hand, pretending to herself that the English liked her, foreigner though she was. Well, there'd be no more nonsense from her! She should pay back some of what she and her foreigners had stolen; she should pay!

  Johanne, troubled by the darkness of his face when all should have been joyous, sent a dazzling smile to her dearest son.

  He returned the smile to his dearest mother.

  * * *

  “No,” Johanne said, “no! He has cut my revenues enough...enough. The King cannot expect it!”

  “And yet he does expect it,” Henry Beaufort, the rich bishop who was Chancellor, too, smiled. He held out a long, jewelled hand. “Madam, be advised. All Christendom knows you are wise.”

  She shrugged the compliment away.

  He nodded. “Wise enough, for instance, to rejoice for Agincourt—though your son Arthur is taken and your daughter widowed. Wise enough to know that one does not cross the King with impunity.”

  She knew he spoke good common sense. But the money; the dear, the precious money. She could not forget the penury of her youth; could not give her gold as freely as she gave her heart. Henry's father had understood that; he had dowered her richly.

  “Wise?” she said. “I have not been wise. I have given overmuch already; given and given again.”

  “That was wise,” he told her. “What is not given may well be taken.”

  “It has been taken.”

  He ignored her.

  “And what was given,” he said, smooth, “wa
s, it seems, not enough.”

  “When will it be enough? And what will be left for my old age?”

  “There may be...no old age.”

  “You hint?” Johanne said.

  “I hint nothing...except there are women who never grow old.” He bowed. And it might have been a compliment. “Be advised, Madam,” he said again. And the words took something from his smile.

  When he had bowed himself out, she paced, restless.

  What had Beaufort meant about not growing old? A threat? It looked like it. He had reminded her—and truly—that Henry was not to be crossed. But Henry was her dearest son. She had nothing to fear from him, nothing.

  Her ruling passion caught her, seized her, made nothing of her shrewdness, her wisdom.

  She would not part with her money.

  * * *

  Henry was a stallion curbed. England rejoiced in his glory—but was not minded to pay for it. He offered more and more glory in return for a capful of gold, but still his men went unpaid. He did not know which way to turn. His own resources he had mortgaged to the last jewel; even the Harry Crown redeemed at long last from the Lord Mayor of London had been pawned again to his Uncle Beaufort. That would mean the rich bishop in camp again, watching all comings and goings, anxious for his precious gold. And Johanne, rich Johanne, his dearest mother, was obdurate. He could not think of her without anger.

  He attended, not hopefully, the opening of Parliament. Beaufort preached on the text God hath opened for you the way. “Now is our time to help, to lend to the Lord of Hosts Who has helped our King...”

  It was moving, Henry thought, sardonic. Beaufort himself was moved, forgetting, no doubt, the good security he had taken on his loans. There was Parliament nodding and smiling; but what would it do? Not much he feared; money was short and who knew how long glory would last?

  He was right. The money voted was not generous. Well, money or not, he was going on with his preparations. God would open the way for His Soldier.

  * * *

  The Emperor Sigismund had arrived in London—a poor, shabby man for so great a title; he had come at the Pope's request to preach peace.