Root of the Tudor Rose (43 page)

She sometimes felt, though, that they were really only half a family. She would have been so very happy to see their big brother Henry helping Edmund to ride a horse, perhaps, or teaching Jasper a new game. And she would have taught them all to be gentle with their sister Tacinda and their disabled brother Thomas. Tacinda was nearly ten years old, she realised with a shock. How she would love to see her little girl. Who did she look like? Did she have reddish-coloured hair like her brothers, or her father's dark curls? Did she enjoy wearing pretty clothes? Had she inherited the Valois nose? Were her eyes still forget-me-not blue? She would dearly love the child of her imagining to have some substance.

Still, she told herself, getting up abruptly from her seat in the shade of the chestnut tree and brushing down her skirt, it didn't do to live in the past and there were many, many women who would be envious of her two healthy young sons. The Cobham woman, for instance: from what Catherine had heard, she still hadn't managed to conceive. She still couldn't bring herself to think of her as the Duchess of Gloucester. That had been Jacqueline's title.

Leaving Owen and the boys to enjoy their games for a little longer, she began to walk back to the house and saw Joanna Troutbeck hobbling towards her. Poor old Troutbeck, she thought, she wasn't getting any younger. She must try to persuade her to take things a little more easily.

‘Your Highness, you have a visitor,' Troutbeck panted. ‘Cardinal Beaufort is here to see you.'

‘My Lord Uncle! I didn't know he was in England. What a surprise! Thank you. Thank you, Troutbeck, I can't wait to see him!'

Standing for a moment to catch her breath, Joanna Troutbeck watched Catherine as she turned and hurried down the path to the house. She didn't think the Queen would be too pleased to hear what the Cardinal had to tell her.

Catherine knew immediately that something was gravely wrong. Henry Beaufort dispensed with the niceties of royal protocol and simply took both her hands in his. ‘My dear,' he said. ‘I have some very sad news.'

‘Who?' she asked flatly.

‘My nephew John of Bedford.'

‘John? No, surely. He's not dead? He can't be dead!'

‘Yes. I'm afraid so. He died last month after a long illness and has been laid to rest in the cathedral at Rouen. It was a magnificent funeral. If that's any comfort to you,' he added, knowing that it probably wouldn't be.

‘But … but John's an Englishman. Why wasn't he brought home? Henry was brought home. It wouldn't have been difficult. Why was John buried in France? Was that because his new wife insisted upon it? She should not have been allowed to. They hadn't been married long. He should have been brought home.'

‘Hush, Catherine, hush.' Beaufort kept hold of both her hands in an attempt to calm her. He knew that Catherine had never met John's new wife, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, but she must have realised that this second marriage had been undertaken for political reasons. It was not the love match John had known with his first wife.

‘It was his wish, Catherine,' he said. ‘John knew France as well as he knew England. And you must remember that Anne is buried in France. I'm sure that's the reason why. Perhaps he wanted to feel near his beloved Anne.'

Anne, the solemn, funny cousin who could always make Catherine laugh, and tall, gentle John, who had been so kind to her. She couldn't imagine how her world would be without them. She pulled her hands away from Beaufort's warm grip and covered her face.

Owen hurried in from the garden, summoned by Joanna Troutbeck who knew that his wife would need him. At a glance, he realised the gravity of the situation and crossed the room to take Catherine in his arms. ‘Who?' he mouthed at Cardinal Beaufort over her head. ‘John of Bedford,' replied the Cardinal in a voice barely above a whisper.

Owen nodded and knew that Catherine would need all the comfort he could offer her but, as she sobbed against his chest, he also realised that this death was much more than a bereavement. It meant that, if anything should happen to Catherine's son Henry, the only remaining royal uncle, Humphrey of Gloucester, would inherit the throne. He couldn't help feeling apprehensive.

Cardinal Beaufort, too, was very aware of the issues involved but for the moment it was enough to sit with Catherine while she listened tearfully to his account of John's funeral. Later, he told them both about the outcome of the Treaty of Arras. Catherine's irresolute, feckless brother was now the King of France and her son's claim to the French throne was utterly repudiated by the French. With John of Bedford's death, Philip of Burgundy's power had increased greatly in France, as had Humphrey of Gloucester's in England.

Listening to the Cardinal, Owen could almost smell trouble ahead.

A memorial service for the Duke of Bedford was held in the abbey church at Westminster in November, attended by scores of his friends. He had been a popular member of the royal family and many in the Abbey congregation smiled at each other's remembered anecdotes about his kindness. Cardinal Beaufort delivered the oration and struggled to control his voice. Though he had never regretted his decision to choose the church over parenthood, his nephews had been like sons to him. It was not in the natural scheme of things, he thought, for parents to bury their children, and now here he was, presiding over the memorial service for the latest of the brothers to die. It wasn't an easy thing to do. They'd gone now, all except Humphrey. Henry Beaufort was tired of death.

Catherine was finding the service difficult, too. Travelling separately, she and Owen had returned to the Palace of Westminster as soon as they could but now that they were back in London, they dared not be seen together. They had left Edmund and Jasper behind in Hatfield, being looked after by Joanna Courcy and two nurses: Catherine's wedding ring was again on the chain around her neck and nestling in its old hiding place. As she listened to Cardinal Beaufort's oration extolling his nephew's virtues, her own memories were of John's kindness when he accompanied her on the agonising journey through France and England with her husband's coffin all those years ago. She would sorely miss him. She prayed that he was reunited with his beloved Anne.

The court was still in mourning for John during the first week of December and the King's fourteenth birthday came as a welcome relief. Catherine was pleased to be at Windsor with him and included in the celebrations, modest though they were.

Anton, with his usual deftness of touch, had created a splendid banquet for the occasion and forty people sat down to the meal. The King was seated between his mother and the Duchess of Gloucester, who monopolised the conversation. She talked incessantly, punctuating her conversation with a laugh which tinkled down a descending scale. She positively sparkled. Catherine, sitting on the other side of Henry, felt quite dowdy and wished heartily that she was in Bishop's Hatfield with her husband and children.

But then this, too, was her child. Only fourteen years old but solemn beyond his years, Henry was already burdened by the perceived responsibilities of kingship. He had shown no emotion at the recent death of his uncle, assuming that to do so would have been frowned upon. He was being groomed assiduously for his role in life and, in true royal fashion, he had mastered the art of making inconsequential conversation.

‘So, tell me, my Lady,' he said to his mother between mouthfuls of his favourite marrowbone pudding, ‘can we expect you to be at Windsor for Christmas?'

‘If I am to interpret that as an invitation, then certainly,' said Catherine. ‘It is always the greatest of pleasures for me to spend time with my son.' With all my sons, she thought to herself. Spending Christmas with Henry would mean being away from Edmund and Jasper during the festive season and she knew how excitedly her little boys were looking forward to it. Perhaps she could smuggle them into Windsor, so that she wouldn't have to divide her heart in two.

‘Of course,' Henry was saying pompously, ‘I look forward to Christmas as a time to celebrate the coming of Our Lord. I eschew the more frivolous aspects of the festival, though the carol singing is enjoyable enough.'

Catherine longed to tell him to let go, to relax and make the most of his youth while he could. But what she said was: ‘Of course. That is the sign of a truly pious nature.'

‘I often think,' Henry went on in the same exaggerated tone, ‘that Christmas is a time for little children and, since there are none in this household, perhaps our celebrations are rather subdued.'

It seemed like a God-given opportunity to tell him about his brothers and his sister. Catherine grasped the nettle.

‘My Lord,' she began slowly, ‘I have something to tell you which I think you would like to hear …'

‘Then Catherine, my dear,' came a voice from Henry's other side, ‘I'm sure we would all like to hear it, particularly if it means we can share in the King's pleasure!'

Catherine could have kicked herself. She should have realised that the Cobham woman's ears would be flapping. ‘Oh, it's nothing of any great consequence,' she said. ‘Just an idea I'd had for a Christmas entertainment. It will keep for another time.'

Her opportunity came though, a few days later when Henry, aware of his mother's liking for music, requested the pleasure of her company for an hour during the afternoon to listen to some of the newest compositions by Master John Dunstable, who had recently returned from France, but when Catherine was shown into the room where Henry was waiting for her, she found him entirely alone.

‘My humblest apologies, Mother,' said Henry as Catherine curtseyed. ‘But I'm afraid that Master Dunstable has succumbed to an illness which confines him to his room. From what I hear of his health, I doubt that he will be able to entertain us this week.'

‘No matter, my Lord,' Catherine answered. ‘We could, perhaps, make good use of this opportunity to talk. We haven't talked together for a very long time.'

‘Several years,' said Henry with a wry smile. ‘Perhaps that's because you're so rarely at court. Tell me, Mother, why do you choose to stay away? It would be pleasant to see you more often.'

Catherine looked at him. The moment had come. ‘Henry,' she said after a long pause, ‘you had better sit down. This is going to take a long time and I hardly know where to begin.'

She left nothing out. Shaking with emotion, she told him of the abject loneliness and misery she had endured after his father's death, about the rejection she had met on all sides, about the Duke of Gloucester's dismissive arrogance and about the extraordinary kindness shown her by the Clerk of the Wardrobe who became first her friend and then her husband. Then she told him about his sister and his brothers.

Henry listened in shocked silence, his eyes never moving from her face. He stopped her for a moment while he rang a small bell and ordered a jug of wine and some honey cakes from the kitchen. Waiting for them to arrive, he walked over to the window and stood there for a long time, looking out, saying nothing, his hands locked together in an effort to control their trembling as he came to terms with what he had been told.

Slut! The word screamed in his head and it took all his self-control not to scream it at her. How could his own mother descend into such depravity? How could she fall so far from grace? He could scarcely believe that she had consorted with a servant, allowing that servant to lie with her and violate her body. Slut! Slut! Slut! Surely, his mother was no better than a whore!

And yet she had married the man in good faith and in the eyes of God so who was he, even as a king, to gainsay that?

The cakes and wine were brought in and set down on the table. Henry dismissed the footman who brought them with an impatient wave of his hand and sat down again. At length he spoke.

‘So, you and Master Tudor are married, Mother?'

‘We are. We have been at pains to keep our marriage secret, of course, because Master Tudor would be in terrible danger if certain people were to know about it. But yes, we were married in the church of St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe.'

‘When you lived at Baynard's Castle?'

‘Yes. Seven years ago.'

‘You don't wear a ring.'

Catherine took hold of the gold chain around her neck and fished out her wedding ring from its hiding place beneath the bodice of her dress. ‘I have a ring, but I cannot always wear it.'

‘I see. But Master Tudor is a servant, Mother.'

‘He is.'

‘And he is Welsh.'

‘Indeed. He is both those things. He is also a man of honour and integrity and descended from a noble family which included princes of ancient lineage who ruled in these islands long before the Normans came here.'

‘But the Welsh are idle, ignorant people. Dirty, too, my Uncle of Gloucester says.'

‘My son, you must make up your own mind about your Uncle of Gloucester. I feel quite certain of my own opinion of him. He is not a kind man.'

Henry felt he ought to defend Gloucester but could not think how. If only he could break down the barrier of mutual distrust between his uncle and his mother, the two most important people in his life.

‘Did you know that my Uncle of Gloucester has taken over Baynard's Castle since the fire?' he asked. ‘He is having it rebuilt and intends to use it as his London residence.'

‘So I understand. I hope he will be very happy there. I certainly was.'

Henry paused; clearly his mother had no further interest in her old home. He changed tack. ‘You said I had brothers, well, half-brothers anyway. What are their names?'

Catherine smiled. Now she felt happier, speaking about her children and, as she talked, so Henry relaxed visibly and some colour returned to his face. He had really been shocked but now he felt quite excited to hear about his younger brothers. Brothers! And until this very moment, he had thought himself an only child.