Root of the Tudor Rose (27 page)

Catherine paused again for a long moment, then took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was low and her tone was measured. She was desperately trying to keep control of herself.

‘Countess, do not presume to tell me anything about my late husband, the King. His Highness counted several Welshmen among his friends and he valued the unstinting service they gave him on the battlefield, particularly at Agincourt. And let me tell you something else – Master Tudor is an excellent servant, quite one of the best on my staff. He is polite, he is well-spoken, he is agreeable, and he goes to considerable lengths to ensure that I am well served. I have no wish to quarrel with you, Countess, but if you think I should single out Master Tudor for punishment just because he is Welsh, then, to your eternal shame, Madame, you are a bigot!

She turned on her heel and walked swiftly towards the door, conscious that all eyes were on her. Her heart was hammering and she was shaking with anger. How dare that stupid, arrogant woman say such things! Owen was worth twenty of her!

Catherine almost ran to her bedchamber, slammed the door, and threw herself down on the bed, her mind in turmoil. Within a moment, the door opened again to admit Guillemote.

‘My Lady, are you all right?'

‘No, Guillemote, I am not all right. I am furious.'

‘The Countess spoke out of turn, my Lady, I'm sure she will apologise.'

Catherine looked at Guillemote. Slowly, her heart was resuming its normal rate and her breathing was becoming calmer. ‘Guillemote,' she said, ‘I am just as furious with myself as I am with the Countess.'

‘But, my Lady …'

‘No, Guillemote, please listen. I have to talk to someone. The Countess is a stupid, vain, shallow woman and a complete bigot. As I told her in no uncertain terms, if I remember correctly!' She gave a rueful smile and sighed. ‘I don't regret that. I only regret that I could hardly control my feelings. I might have given myself away in front of all those people, people like the Duke of Gloucester, heaven help me … my cousin Jacqueline … the Duchess of Clarence … not just the Countess of Westmorland … Oh, that dreadful woman! Do you think she might have guessed what I was really so furious about?'

‘Master Owen Tudor, Ma'am? The way she was talking about him?'

Catherine nodded. ‘Yes, Master Owen Tudor. Guillemote, I couldn't bear to hear that stupid woman criticising him. He's a wonderful man, thoughtful, charming, funny, considerate. He makes me laugh, he takes me out of myself. He makes me forget how cold the English people are, how much I worry about Jacqueline, how very hurt I feel every time Mistress Ryman takes the baby away from me. Owen Tudor is the only friend I have … except for you, my dear Guillemote.'

‘Thank you, my Lady.' Guillemote paused. ‘Of course, Master Tudor is also very handsome. Last summer, I happened to see him swimming in the river with his cousin and some of their friends from the garrison.'

‘Swimming?' Catherine's eyes widened. ‘Was he clothed?'

‘No, Ma'am, he was wearing nothing at all. And I noticed …' Guillemote hesitated, then decided that she knew her mistress well enough to venture a little risqué humour in an attempt to cheer her up. ‘I noticed that he has … er … well … you remember what we French used to think?' She paused, then her words came out in a rush, ‘He has a very fine tail!'

‘Guillemote!'

Guillemote's smile was both fond and sympathetic: she put her hand on Catherine's arm, genuinely concerned for her. ‘And you're in love with him, my Lady. I have long suspected it.'

Catherine's tears welled and spilled over as she nodded. ‘Yes, Guillemote, I think I must be. Deeply in love.'

‘And … if he feels the same way about you, my Lady, you could both be deeply in trouble.'

Chapter Fifteen

Summer 1424

‘
Wel, sut wyt ti'r hen lwynog
!' Maredydd asked as he moved up to make room for Owen to sit next to him on their favourite bench in the tavern. ‘How are you?'

‘Llwynog
?
Fox? Why am I a fox?'

‘Because I haven't seen you for such a long time. You must have been up to something crafty, something cunning. A little vixen, is it?'

‘Oh yes,' Owen exaggerated. ‘The most beautiful little vixen you ever saw. Small, fair-haired, blue eyes, you know, big here, small here.' He outlined the shape of a woman's body lasciviously with his hands.

‘Get on with you. You won't find one like that around here, more's the pity!' Maredydd drained his tankard and wiped his mouth. ‘I was just going to buy another one of these. D'you want one?'

‘Aye, why not?' Little did Maredydd know, Owen thought, that he had already found her, though she was so far out of his reach that she might as well live on the moon. He watched as his cousin bought more ale and knew that he could never tell him or anyone else how he felt about Catherine. She would always have to remain a secret, locked in his heart.

‘The trick with women,' Maredydd confided, setting two tankards down on the table, ‘is to go for the grateful ones.'

‘The grateful ones? Why?'

‘Well, it's simple, isn't it? They hang on your every word, obey your every command, and anticipate your every little whim … just for the joy of having you pleasure them. It's true. Ask any ugly woman and, if she's honest, she'll tell you it's true.'

‘So, the uglier the better, eh?'

‘Not necessarily. Just as long as she's grateful. You know, a bit like the Duchess of Gloucester.'

‘She's not ugly.'

‘No, perhaps not, she's comely enough, I suppose. But if you compare her with her cousin, the Queen, I'd say she comes a pretty poor second.'

Owen's heart lurched. He agreed wholeheartedly with Maredydd but dared not risk betraying his own feelings about the Queen.

‘So, you're saying that the Duchess probably feels grateful to the Duke for pleasuring her?'

‘Well, she's forever fawning over him. An arrogant bastard, that one. Proud as a dog in a doublet.'

Owen changed the subject. ‘Any more news about his plans to invade Holland?'

‘No, not yet. The Duchess is whelping, isn't she? They'll wait until that's all out of the way before they make their move. I hope they don't wait too long, though. I'm to go with them and I'm not getting any younger!'

Jacqueline had been so excited, so happy throughout the spring and had developed an endearing little habit of patting her swelling belly and talking to the child within. Catherine often found her looking down at herself and saying such things as: ‘You little rapscallion! You wait until I tell Papa how hard you're kicking me!' And all the while her face was wreathed in smiles.

There was nothing to worry anyone. Then, one sultry night in July, Jacqueline, attended by the midwife, Margery Wagstaff, and two of her assistants, smiled nervously at Catherine. ‘Not long now,' she said. ‘Stay with me for a while.'

These were the dog days, the hottest and most oppressive of the whole year. The air was still but, despite the stifling heat, a fire was kept burning in Jacqueline's bedchamber so that a small cauldron of hot water was constantly available to the midwives. It made the room unbearable and for two long days and nights, poor Jacqueline sweated and strained and cried out in agony. For hours at a time, Catherine sat by the bed, holding her hand and trying not to mind how painfully her cousin's fingernails were digging into her. Humphrey retired to the north tower of the castle where he was completely unable to hear his wife screaming. His son would be born eventually and there was nothing he could do. This was women's work and no man had any business being anywhere near it.

The midwives tried everything they knew but the baby wouldn't come. Margery Wagstaff massaged ointment into the taut skin across Jacqueline's swollen belly then shushed the others while she listened for a heartbeat. She felt for the child's head but could only feel its buttocks. She tried to encourage the baby to move by opening and closing drawers and cupboard doors to simulate the opening of the womb. She smeared pepper under Jacqueline's nose to make her sneeze. And still the baby wouldn't come.

‘This one's going to be a lazy little tyke, Your Grace,' she said, teasing, to keep Jacqueline's spirits up. ‘He likes taking his time so he's always going to be late for appointments. You'll have to train him well!' Jacqueline smiled weakly between the searing pains of contraction. The child could be as lazy as he liked once he'd been born, she didn't care. She just prayed that he'd be here soon.

Catherine stayed with Jacqueline and did whatever she could to help. She soaked a cloth in cooling rosewater and gently cleaned Jacqueline's face where it was streaked by rivulets of sweat running through the pepper grounds around her mouth. Poor Jacqueline had sneezed pitifully but to no effect and the baby was still firmly in her womb. The midwives had used all the techniques they knew and they began to talk of past experiences they could draw on. They even discussed whether, as a last resort, they would summon a doctor to cut the baby out. Catherine begged them not to.

‘She'll surely die, if you do that!' she whispered urgently. ‘You must not! The Duke will be very angry.'

So Jacqueline's agony continued and Margery Wagstaff urged Catherine to snatch a little sleep. As the hours went by, the midwives made several more attempts to turn the baby but without success. Out of earshot of his mother, they muttered to each other that if the child wasn't already dead, he soon would be. He was having too much of a battle to be born. They had completely failed to turn him, so there was nothing for it but to haul him out as best they could and hope against hope that both he and his mother would survive. Getting a grip on a small leg, Margery Wagstaff looked around in desperation.

‘I'll have to baptise him as soon as he's out,' she said. ‘It's urgent. We might lose them both. There's no time to get a priest. Get me the holy water. Does anyone know what he's to be called?'

The midwives shrugged, no one had told them that. ‘Richard is quite a nice name,' one of them suggested. Margery looked down at the small body which she was trying to manoeuvre into the world. ‘Oh, God. Bad luck. This one's a girl and by now it doesn't matter what I call her. Get me the holy water. Now! Just get it!'

‘Tacinda is a pretty name for a girl,' said the youngest midwife, as she handed Margery the bowl of holy water. ‘My sister called her little girl Tacinda. I really like it.'

‘Tacinda it is.' Margery dipped her bloodied fingers into the water and made the sign of the cross on the forehead of the small baby girl. ‘
In nomine Patris … et Filii … et Spiritus Sancti …'
The child was dead. She had never moved, never cried, never breathed. She had probably been dead since becoming entangled with the umbilical cord which was still knotted around her little wrinkled neck.

Catherine had slept like a stoat, wary, half-listening for the cry of a new-born baby, but she'd heard nothing. By the time she came back into the room, Jacqueline had lost consciousness and the midwives' most urgent task was to keep her alive. Two of them were trying to prop her up on pillows to ease her breathing while they cleaned her and changed her blood-soaked bedding. Margery Wagstaff took away the limp, lifeless body of the baby. She would wash the little one and lay her out, in case her poor mother should want to see her. Never having lived, she had not been given the last rites, but at least she had a name to take with her to the grave. The midwife muttered a prayer over Tacinda's tiny corpse.

Catherine wept.

Humphrey had to be told, of course, and Catherine cast around in her mind for the best person to tell him. If only John of Bedford were here, he would know what to do, but John was still in Picardy after the latest in a string of recent victories in France. Margaret would have been another ally but she, too, was away from court. There was nothing for it but to tell Humphrey herself.

She realised, afterwards, that she should have taken a few minutes to prepare herself, to wash her face and comb her hair at least. Her eyes were red with weeping for her cousin and the dead child and her hair was matted with sweat. No doubt her gown, too, was creased and stained.

When she found him, Humphrey was with a group of a dozen or so friends in the north tower. The sound of high-pitched laughter and the music of psalteries reached her before she had even opened the door. Lolling in a cushioned chair, Humphrey had a wine glass in one hand and when he saw Catherine he gestured with the other hand to stop the music. Her appearance prompted a flurry of bows and curtsies among his companions and, kicking away his footstool, Humphrey rose to greet her, barely lifting a disdainful eyebrow at her dishevelled appearance. He bent over her hand and pressed it a little too warmly to his lips.

‘Your Highness. I am delighted to see you. You bring me news of my son?'

She looked at him in disbelief. Was that all men cared about? Siring a son? Had he not thought that his wife had gone through exactly the same birthing agonies to bring him a daughter? And didn't he care enough to ask how she was? Catherine tried hard to control herself.

‘I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, my Lord,' she said. ‘The baby was a girl.'

He frowned. ‘Was?'

‘Yes. She didn't survive. She was such a pretty little thing but she was stillborn.' Catherine swallowed hard to keep the tears at bay. ‘Jacqueline has endured three days of agony and to no avail. I'm sorry, Humphrey.'

‘I'm sorry, too, my Lady. How is the Duchess by now?'

‘Very weak, my Lord but, with God's grace, she will survive.'

‘Then I won't disturb her rest,' he said. ‘Please give her my condolences. I will visit her in due course.'