Authors: Vanora Bennett
‘It will turn up. The worry must be that a sympathiser of
your brother has stolen it to pass to him … But at least your brother doesn’t have it either,’ the Cardinal said.
She shook her head.
‘Don’t lose hope yet,’ the Cardinal added.
But Catherine felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She said: ‘This is just the kind of thing I feared.’
The waiting dragged on through April, through May, and into June. It was easy enough for Catherine to plead headaches; stomach upsets; mysterious pains. All to be alone and think of Owain while he was occupied with his daytime tasks; while he wrote letters with the Cardinal. No one noticed her distraction. Everyone else was fractious and bored. Only Harry was contented and cheerful to be with Master Somerset at his lessons, and following the guard to and from Lantern Gate four times a day, and, out of the demanding company of young men and the Earl of Warwick, playing on his own, finding hiding places behind curtains and under tables, making tunnels from cushions or just gazing out at the world going by in the courtyard. Catherine and Owain hardly spoke by day. She lived through the overcast daylight hours lying down: curling her feet up under her; listening to the sea; hugging her arms to herself; dreaming.
She slept late after Owain slipped away at dawn every day. She lay in bed, listening to the ragged fife and drum salute that marked the morning opening of Lantern Gate, peacefully watching Dame Butler move round her room, tidying away clothes, marking out items for the laundry and items for the menders; feeding Harry little morsels of sweets; letting herself be eased into her clothes; revelling in what they didn’t know. It was as if everything outside her room – and everyone, even the old friends she was so happy to be with again – had become nothing more than shadows moving faintly on a cave wall. The light that illuminated her came from somewhere else; somewhere they couldn’t see. And nothing mattered except her secret.
Catherine made a point of briefly leaving her own four walls each day. She walked and talked and helped Harry with his books, discussed meals with Dame Butler, prayed, and
listened to Cardinal Beaufort’s charmingly malicious accounts of the various mishaps that had befallen Duke John’s forces in the field, or the Governor’s more worried statements, that he was putting an extra guard on the walls by night, and hadn’t heard back from the Earl of Warwick for a week, and then for two. But all she really saw every day was her own enchanting vision of what would happen later, when darkness fell. All that mattered was the joy of being alone in her room late at night, brushing out her hair, cleaning and scenting herself before the fire in a trance of anticipation, while waiting for the quiet knock at the servants’ door. Waiting to see her lover’s eyes on her and his arms opening.
He’d said playfully in the night, one night: ‘Do you know how you often sit, when you think no one’s looking, with your hand over your mouth, as if you were forcing yourself to keep quiet?’ She’d been amazed; had started, almost indignantly, to deny it. ‘No, really. You do. Like this,’ he’d said; and showed her: a mask of baffled silence with eloquent, anxious eyes over a mouth tightly bound by fingers. Hesitantly, she’d raised her own hand to her face, mirroring his action; felt the familiarity of the movement; the comfort of the fingers and thumb clenched to her jawbone, the pressure of her palm against her lips. She’d laughed uncomfortably and dropped the hand. ‘Do I really?’ she’d asked. ‘You always have,’ he’d said. ‘As if you were afraid to speak. Less, these days. But you shouldn’t ever be afraid to speak; not here, with me.’
It was the grey of dawn; darker than the grey of mid-morning at midsummer in Calais, though not by much. Catherine didn’t care. It was warm where she lay. She stretched luxuriantly. She could hear Owain feeling about on the floor beyond the bed, stepping lightly so as not to disturb her. He must be looking for his shirt. He was humming under his breath.
She felt her cheeks redden with quiet delight as she remembered how he’d lost his shirt last night. She opened the bed curtains. He looked back at her, smiling. He was holding up the shirt. He was shaking his head in wonderment. She could
see he was remembering the same slow, intent passage from door to bed; every breath of it.
‘Welsh,’ she whispered, in mock reproof. ‘You’re singing that Welsh song again.’
‘
Pe cawn i hon
,’ he whispered back. Still smiling; still gazing at her as if he were memorising every inch of her nakedness.
‘I have to go,’ he said. But he came back to the bed. She sighed as his arms enfolded her.
‘You have to go,’ she whispered in his ear. Then, ‘But what does it mean?’
He didn’t answer. She pushed the hair out of his eyes. He was biting his lip. He was blushing.
‘Please,’ she insisted, laughing again.
Looking carefully down at her with that bashful smile, he shrugged, then, trying to look casual, murmured, ‘It means, “
if she were mine
”.’
She felt herself blush with her own embarrassed pleasure.
‘And the rest of the words?’ she prompted, encouraged to press him further; and when he didn’t answer she sang as much of the rest of the lilting melody as she could remember. Her own singing voice was small and breathy; just enough to catch the notes. It didn’t matter. ‘Your favourite song … see how well I know it … what does the rest of it mean?’
‘You listen too well,’ he said reluctantly. He kissed her lips, silencing her.
‘Tell me,’ she pleaded, running a hand up and down his back; reassuring herself, through the feel of skin and sinew, that he really was here with her. ‘Please.’
He laughed. Sat up. Pulled the shirt over his head. Stood up to hunt for the tunic that had been left somewhere further off. She was watching his legs move across the floor when he went on ‘… the song, then … “
If she were mine, and loved me well
…”’
She sat up. ‘Go on,’ she said.
He eased himself into his leggings. ‘“
Life would be only pleasure
,”’ he continued more fluently after another pause, yet still pretending to be too busy dressing to look back at
her. ‘“
I would not care for sacks of gold, nor other earthly treasure. Her winning ways, her wistful eyes, throw such a charm about her. She must be mine, yes, mine alone; I cannot live without her
.”’
He shrugged and bowed, perhaps embarrassed only to be caught out in the small vanity of having clearly thought out this translation in case, one day, someone asked. In case she asked. Or perhaps for some other reason. He bent down to push his foot into a pointy-toed boot.
Then she realised something. The soft glow that began to spread through her at this thought stopped her tongue again.
Owain had been humming that song for years. Everywhere she’d seen him. Everywhere they’d lived. Even in the years when he’d hardly spoken a word to her beyond what was strictly necessary; when she’d thought he must hate her. It was proof.
Finally she said, almost in a whisper: ‘Did you always know? Really? Did you always feel … this?’
He was at the door now, struggling with the second boot. He didn’t answer till he stood up again. His face mirrored the radiant softness in her heart.
‘Always,’ he said.
The Cardinal was sitting at the Governor’s desk, going through the dispatches. He didn’t look embarrassed when Catherine walked in, thinking she might be alone here to watch the rain and think of Owain humming his song. She’d settled herself in the window and was humming it under her breath before she noticed the figure at the desk. He just nodded, as if spying on official correspondence from London was the most natural thing in the world for a Cardinal to do, and said, in his honeyed voice, ‘It seems my troublesome nephew Humphrey is storing up more trouble for me back home.’
She looked up at that. She still had the private smile of a moment before on her lips.
‘Dear Uncle,’ she said. The Cardinal never looked worried, so she wasn’t unduly concerned.
‘Something to do with jewels,’ the Cardinal went on in
mild, world-weary tones. ‘The jewels Henry gave me as a pledge against my loans to the crown. To finance the war. Years ago now; perhaps too long ago for anyone to remember things straight.’
She raised her eyebrows. Tried, she thought successfully, to banish the memory behind her smile, in order to concentrate on the Cardinal’s story.
‘He seems to have got it into his head that I’ve stolen them,’ the Cardinal said gently. ‘He’s being very pompous about it, in fact.’ He tapped the offending letter and shook his head in regret. ‘Stolen the Crown Jewels of England, he’s saying. I don’t know where he gets these ideas.’ He gave her a faintly quizzical look.
‘Oh no; but why?’ Catherine said faintly. He had her attention now. She’d been so happy that the Cardinal had come back to court; she didn’t want any more open conflict between him and Duke Humphrey.
‘The truth?’ the Cardinal said. ‘I think it’s really about politics … He thinks the Pope is about to recognise your brother Charles as rightful King of France – to go against the English war effort, in other words, and displace little Harry. And I’m the Pope’s man. He doesn’t know which way I’ll jump. He thinks he needs to disgrace me in case I go against him.’
It made her head spin. ‘Oh, but I know you’d never …’ she said. ‘You’d always be loyal to Harry.’ As she said the words, however, she wondered: charming though he’d always been with her, he was a manipulator of men. She had no illusions about that. How far could you ever really be sure that he’d always be loyal?
That thought made her uncomfortable; made
her
feel disloyal. The Cardinal was her friend. Still, the Cardinal didn’t seem to notice her sudden thoughtfulness or indeed seem unduly worried by what he’d dug up about Humphrey. He just shook his head as if it wasn’t worth going into. ‘Well, I expect it will all blow over in its own time,’ he said. ‘And it’s no bad thing to be away while he’s in one of his tempests. No bad thing, either, to know what’s being said.’
Sympathetically – extra sympathetically to make up for her moment of doubt just now, she said: ‘But of course it must worry you terribly …’
He waved a hand at the papers he was putting down. ‘Humphrey was always headstrong; even as a boy,’ he said. ‘What a time he’s given us over the years. You as much as me.’
She sensed he might be offering her a kind of pact with those words: an alliance of victims. Realising suddenly that she had her hand clamped over her mouth, just as Owain had said, she lowered it a little uncertainly to hover at her throat; and continued to look, also uncertainly, at the tall, stooped figure in red. She wasn’t versed in the ways of courtly scheming.
But the Cardinal left it there. With tremendous charm, he came over to the window and sat down beside Catherine. Fixed her with a kindly eye.
‘You’ve been very patient with all these delays, dear girl,’ he added. ‘It must be trying.’
Catherine lifted helpless shoulders and smiled her prettiest smile. ‘All you can do is wait.’
The Cardinal patted her knee. ‘And you’ve been unwell, I know,’ he went on. ‘Headaches … indispositions.’
She didn’t altogether like the searching look he was giving her. She found herself wishing she hadn’t been humming Owain’s song as she came in; hadn’t given her thoughts away, however slightly.
‘Oh,’ she said hastily; ‘yes, aches and pains … nothing serious.’
‘But if you’ll forgive an old man of the cloth a compliment,’ the Cardinal swept on, ‘you’re looking more beautiful than ever. Radiant. Sea air and boredom must agree with you.’
Catherine felt herself blushing. She didn’t think it mattered if the Cardinal guessed the reason for her shining eyes, not really. No more than it would matter if it were Dame Butler who’d tidily arranged the coins and purse Owain must have left behind one morning on the chest in her room. She thought both of them would turn a blind eye. She was safe, or relatively safe, among friends. Still, she’d rather they didn’t know.
She nodded awkwardly, acknowledging the compliment. ‘I’ll be fine to travel,’ she muttered, ‘there’s nothing the matter.’
Then, to change the subject, she added: ‘Is there any news from the war?’
‘As a matter of fact there is,’ the Cardinal replied readily enough. ‘Good news, too, for once. A man came from Warwick at Compiègne this morning. The French have surrendered at last.’
Catherine’s heart lurched. Change, she thought; and her mind was suddenly full of the memory of Owain moving against her in the night; the words he’d said. She didn’t want change.
But the Cardinal was too relieved at the news to notice how still she’d gone. He grinned; not afraid to show her his sly side. ‘So it’s good you’re feeling better. We’ll be on the move again soon,’ he added. ‘Off English territory; into France. To Rouen, I think; that’s where our old friend Warwick is making for now.’ And he grinned mischievously at her, inviting her to dimple back at him. ‘From the look of those letters, it can’t be soon enough for me.’
How grand Warwick had become since going back to the war, Catherine thought with a hint of amusement, watching the Earl ride out through the gates at Rouen to meet the approaching royal party. The Earl’s horse was far more impressively caparisoned than his monarch’s little pony – all gold thread worked into the red cloth. Unlike his troop of tired soldiers, who looked as though they’d need the chance to recuperate here on the banks of the Seine after their long and gruelling siege, Warwick held his head very high and his back was straight.
He’d got more gnarled … stringy, Catherine thought with dislike. He wasn’t young; many other men his age would have retired peaceably to their estates. But he was in his element here – among men; close to death – a place where he could take wild chances. Warwick had war in his nature. This was as close as he could come to being happy.
He’d grown very formal and courteous with Harry, too, Catherine noticed (even if his eyes still had that cold boiled-gooseberry look as they slipped past Catherine herself). He called the little boy ‘Sire’ and ‘Majesty’, and bowed very deeply whenever he could. Was this one of the sacred mysteries of the crowning ceremony Harry had undergone at Westminster? she wondered. Or just a sign of Warwick’s new, soldierly mood?