Authors: Vanora Bennett
‘So … should you leave?’ Owain asked, cutting to what he felt was the central question: what action the Cardinal should take. ‘Now … before it goes any further … before you are implicated?’ But Owain could see the problem with a principled walk-out even before he said those words. If the Cardinal left, he’d cut his ties with Harry and Catherine. And those ties were exactly what he was trying to strengthen.
The Cardinal shook the head still cradled in his hands. ‘Can’t do that,’ he said. No explanations. He never offered explanations if he could avoid it; he tried never to pin himself down too much.
With private surprise, Owain realised that Catherine and the Cardinal, for very different reasons, each seemed to be inclining towards support for Jehanne, meaning conflict with Warwick. Owain didn’t share their complicated feelings. As far as he was concerned, there were no doubts and no shades of grey. Jehanne’s actions in the past, and her existence in the present, were a threat to Harry and to the English rule in France that King Henry had instituted. Owain’s loyalties lay with Henry’s son, and always would, so any threat to the child had to be neutralised. It wasn’t personal; it wasn’t that Owain didn’t thrill a little to the idea of that girl taking up a sword; the gallantry of it. But it didn’t make any difference. Jehanne had to die, just as a wasp, a rat or a spider that came too close to the little King’s person would be exterminated. Henry would have wanted no less.
Owain thought it might be advisable to keep Catherine and the Cardinal apart while this question was discussed. He didn’t like the image that flashed into his head: the pair of them stalking out of the great hall together, leaving behind a furious, white-faced Warwick. He didn’t want trouble. He’d advise Catherine to eat in her rooms; he’d advise the Cardinal to stick to theology. They couldn’t combine forces that way.
He told the Cardinal: ‘Talk to Warwick again. He won’t want to look a fool any more than you. If there are no grounds for a religious trial, explain why. Dissuade him.’
‘You look so tired,’ Owain said, kissing Catherine’s eyes shut. ‘Rest. I’ll have food sent up to you for today. I don’t want you to get ill.’
‘No,’ Catherine replied determinedly. She rose naked from the bed. ‘I’m not missing dinner. Not today. Dame Butler says that’s when Warwick’s going to make his announcement about Jehanne. Apparently he’s going to put her before a religious court – for heresy.’
Owain hadn’t asked the Cardinal exactly what the charge would be. ‘Heresy?’ he queried faintly. It sounded a dubious sort of charge. The visions; the voices? Were they heretical?
‘Because she wore men’s clothes,’ Catherine said. ‘He’s saying that was heresy.’
With something like dread, Owain saw her chin jut into an unfamiliar stubbornness. She went on, with undisguised scorn for the clumsiness of the accusation – and, he felt, for Warwick’s choice of it, as well as Warwick himself: ‘But of course you’d need to dress up as a man on the battlefield.’
Thank God we will be leaving Rouen soon, Owain thought. But even he hadn’t understood everything. It was only when he was sitting in the great hall, at his place halfway down the table among the knights, watching Warwick’s thin lips move as he made his announcement, that Owain realised what was happening. Warwick declared that the King, the Queen Mother, the royal party and the English army would all stay at Rouen for the duration of the heresy trial he was convening for Jehanne. It was vital, he said, that the greatest lords of France were seen to witness the heretic being destroyed.
The knights filed out.
‘Why heresy, may I ask?’ Cardinal Beaufort called as the Earl also rose, looking grimly satisfied.
Warwick stopped when he heard the loud question. He gave the Cardinal a look of disfavour. The Earl had his new favourite with him – a soft-jowled bishop, Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, the man who’d led the negotiations through which the English had bought Jehanne from the Burgundians who’d captured her. Warwick gestured to the Bishop to answer.
‘Deuteronomy, chapter twenty-two,’ the cleric answered readily enough, with a faint curve of the lips.
Catherine hung back nearby, listening. She took no notice of Owain, who for some reason had come up from his place at table to hers, at the top end of the table on the dais, to try and nudge her out – a very indiscreet lapse, she thought, and quite uncharacteristic of Owain. She wasn’t going to take any notice anyway; she wanted to hear out this bishop. She could see the fat French cleric knew his texts, but she disliked the way his cheeks quivered as he quoted: ‘“
A woman shall not be clothed with man’s apparel, neither shall a man use woman’s apparel: for he that does these things is abominable before God.
”’
The Cardinal only waved his hand. He knew his theology too. ‘But that won’t hold up for a moment, my dear Bishop,’ he replied swiftly. ‘What about Saint Thomas Aquinas? The
Summa Theologica.
‘“
It is sinful for a woman to use male clothing or vice-versa; nevertheless in some circumstances it may be done without sin if due to some necessity, whether for the purpose of concealing oneself from enemies, or due to a lack of other clothing, or due to some other matter of this type
.”’
The Bishop quivered again. ‘Ah, but she never lacked other clothing,’ he lisped, with another ingratiating little smile. ‘Clothing more proper to a woman than hosen and doublet.’
The Cardinal smiled back. Both Catherine and Owain could see it wasn’t his usual smile – more of a baring of teeth. ‘But she was on a battlefield, among hundreds of men, and a virgin,’ the Cardinal riposted, and Owain was unpleasantly aware of the admiring glance Catherine was sending his way. ‘She had to protect herself. Wearing men’s clothes was a way to do that.’ The Cardinal added, with a hint of menace in the velvet of his voice: ‘I think you’ll find that most of Christendom will take the view that it’s perfectly normal for a virgin to fear rape more than she fears death. Mmm?’ He leaned forward and continued: ‘Perhaps you have forgotten,
Monseigneur
, how many theologians have made precisely that point in their writings. Guido de Baysio, Archdeacon of Bologna, for
instance.
Rosarium super Decreto.
‘“
If a woman should have a proper purpose – in order to travel abroad safely, or to protect her chastity under other circumstances when there is fear of losing it – she is not committing a sin if she should then make use of male clothing to more easily evade danger.
”’
The unpleasant Bishop let a look of extreme pained astonishment come across his fat features. He spread his arms wide and turned his clean pink palms towards the heavens.
Catherine expected the bulging veins at Warwick’s neck and temples to signal the beginning of an outburst of rage. She’d seen him with Harry. But all he said, in a cold, warning voice, addressing the Cardinal, was, ‘Henry.’
They all stopped then and looked cautiously round. But it was all right. The last of the knights was loping out of the door. The table was clear. The servants were gone. The participants in this conversation moved closer together. Their voices dropped.
‘Look,’ the Cardinal said, ignoring the Bishop and addressing Warwick directly, ‘Richard, I don’t care what charge you use against her as long as it works. I quite understand that you need her dead. But you need a charge – and a guilty verdict – that the world can take seriously. Not
this.
’
Owain breathed out. Catherine looked so disappointed by that cynical new note in the Cardinal’s voice.
The Cardinal said: ‘I don’t know that a religious trial is at all what you need. I fear you’ve been very badly advised.’ He gave the Bishop a nasty look, then continued, ‘This “wearing men’s clothes” accusation is so weak, for one thing – and heresy a messy charge at the best of times. It’s all going to go terribly wrong.’
Warwick, stony-faced, said: ‘How?’
‘First, because if you do stick to the particular charge you’ve chosen, there are so many loopholes; so many theological arguments that Jehanne could use to get off the hook. I just quoted a couple, but there are dozens more. Her representative will easily find them.’
‘Not if we don’t allow anyone to represent her,’ Warwick said quickly.
‘But you must,’ the Cardinal replied sternly. ‘That’s vital. It was my second point. No one will accept this as a proper ecclesiastical court unless you give Jehanne all the protection that a real ecclesiastical court would. Of course she needs a defender. And you should have her guarded by nuns, too; that’s what the Pope will expect. Not those thugs out there. It’s not going to help your case – that she has nothing to fear from wearing women’s clothes – if, while you’re making that argument, she’s having outrages perpetrated on her body by your soldiers.’
Warwick went white with rage – though, Catherine noticed, he didn’t actually do anything to shut the Cardinal up. He just sat very straight, pinching his lips together, cracking his knuckles.
Gently, triumphantly, the Cardinal finished: ‘But, Richard, the real problem with a heresy charge is that it’s not a capital offence. Even if your court finds her guilty, as I’m sure they will,’ – he permitted one side of his mouth a small upward twitch – ‘you can’t execute her for heresy.’
‘Henry,’ Warwick said again, just as quietly. This time, Catherine thought she heard the faintness of desperation in his thin voice. He doesn’t know how to reply, she thought. He’s stuck.
How clever the Cardinal was, Catherine thought. He was looking almost kindly at Warwick now. He said: ‘She’ll just swear off and promise to dress like a woman in future. And what will you be left with? You’ll have to go to the trouble and expense of keeping your enemy’s most potent symbol in dresses, not to mention bread and onions, for the rest of her days.’
Warwick chomped on his lip, giving the Cardinal a murderous stare. He was beyond words.
It was the French Bishop who replied. ‘But heresy
is
a capital offence …’ he said. His voice had the slither of snakes or dead leaves. He didn’t seem in the least disconcerted by the Cardinal’s arguments. ‘… The second time … if you re-offend.’
The Cardinal laughed in open disbelief.
‘But, my dear man,’ he said, with rather less than his usual politeness, ‘you surely can’t believe she’d be sitting in your prison in her skirts, all safe and sound, then suddenly take it into her head to call for men’s clothes again, just like that, so you could be justified in burning her?’
The little Bishop just smiled. He said: ‘Yes. That is what will happen.’
The Cardinal replied, ‘But – even if she managed to persuade Warwick here to give her more men’s clothes – because she couldn’t do it without some help from her jailer, could she now? – that would be suicide. And nothing I’ve heard about her suggests she’s a fool. So why would she?’
The little Bishop smiled wider. ‘But she
will
commit heresy a second time,’ he said, with perfectly circular logic, ‘because she is a heretic.’ Then, ignoring the usual rules of etiquette, he took Warwick’s arm and led the usually decisive Earl out of the hall without a backward glance. Catherine could hear him muttering as they left.
Owain, Catherine and the Cardinal were left behind.
‘You were magnificent,’ Catherine said warmly to the Cardinal. ‘You knew all the arguments.’
‘Sometimes,’ the Cardinal replied, trying to sound modest, though unable to stop looking pleased with himself, ‘the pen really is mightier than the sword.’ He smiled. ‘Bishop Beauvais seems to have quite forgotten his theology. A mistake for a man of the cloth. He’ll get poor Warwick into trouble if they’re not careful. Still,’ he added, ‘I imagine they’ll rethink now.’
Owain thought the trial would be recast too. If someone as powerful and as close to the Pope as Cardinal Beaufort had such serious misgivings, surely something would have to change?
But it wasn’t. Warwick stayed away from the table that evening. The trial began the next day.
The servants were run off their feet, firstly because of Warwick not eating at the main table, and secondly because of the flood of incomers to feed, on top of the already packed castle.
Then separate meals ordered for the Cardinal and Queen Catherine too. Everyone wanted to be separate, it seemed.
At least, Catherine thought, sending back her untouched meal, Warwick had no time to torment Harry. Catherine was able to sit with her son in his rooms, day in, day out, playing cards and singing and listening to him falter through his Latin with Master Somerset. She had him fitted for a new set of hose, now he’d outgrown the old ones, and encouraged his hesitant French to the Rouen seamstress, pretending not to notice the discreet white crosses on the quiet seamstress’s sleeves, trying all the while to empty her mind of thoughts about Jehanne.
She needn’t have worried about explaining away the trial to her son, either. Harry didn’t ask. When she told him that the Earl would be busy for a few weeks with state business, Harry looked glassily away at his hands and didn’t respond. Instead he began humming under his breath, as if to blank out her words. For a moment her heart stopped: was he going to start making those disturbed noises, like an animal in pain? Then, with a flood of relief, she recognised what he was actually singing.
Pe cawn i hon
. She kissed him. Let him be happy, she prayed. Let him dream of love. Let him stay innocent.
Downstairs, she couldn’t help but know that the trial was progressing with great speed. The Earl of Warwick didn’t admit issuing death threats to help persuade various French clerics to participate, including the reluctant inquisitor, but you could see from the glum faces trooping into the hall in the mornings that they weren’t there by choice. The Bishop of Beauvais denied Jehanne the right to have pro-French bishops represent her; and he denied her the right to appeal to the Council of Basel and the Pope, who would have stopped the proceedings. But, even though he wouldn’t allow her a legal adviser, he couldn’t yet stop her answering all questions so cleverly that, somehow, she’d so far avoided a conviction for heresy.