The Tudor Bride (33 page)

Nor did further exploration burst this marvellous bubble, for when we had toured the kennel and the mews, also empty, and the stables which contained only our four horses and a couple more for the use of the seneschal, he came to suggest that we should take a walk through the gardens down to the river gate which he would open for us.

‘When he is here my lord bishop goes daily to the river to pray, your grace,’ the man explained to Catherine. ‘He says that is where he feels closest to God.’

The gardens were tidy, but lying mostly fallow, waiting for spring-sown seeds to sprout in freshly dug beds. As we strolled towards the river, we came across a series of fish-ponds which must have been the source of the main element of our excellent meal and there was an extensive herb garden which would prove interesting in a few more weeks when some of the frost-shrivelled plants had sent up shoots to reveal their identities. The more we wandered through the Hadham policies, the more I hoped that Catherine would opt to take up the bishop’s offer. The place seemed to be working a spell on me. It struck me as a kind of Eden; a paradise where every Adam and Eve might live in fruitful harmony with the rest of creation. I yearned to see the park and gardens in the full panoply of their summer greenery.

When we came to the river this wish grew ever stronger. Large, gnarled willows leaned over sloping banks, dipping their bare branches into a broad pool above the mill where huge wooden sluice gates controlled the rush of water needed to turn the wheel. On the near side of this pool was an island, separated from the bank by a reed-fringed backwater spanned by an arched footbridge. It was a place that invited exploration and within minutes Catherine and Owen had crossed the bridge and disappeared into the osier tangle that grew around a coppice of hazel trees at its centre. Geoffrey and I watched them go and hung back, lingering on the grassy bank exchanging speculative glances. A pair of swans with a family of cygnets fossicked among the reeds for food and a few moorhens bobbed about on the calm water of the pool, but there was no sign of any other human life.

‘This place works a kind of magic,’ I remarked, lifting my face to the warm sun. ‘I can feel it pulling me in, but is it real or is it one of those fairy places that will vanish once it has us in its thrall?’

I could feel Geoffrey standing close behind me and he laid his hand gently on my shoulder. ‘There are two kinds of magic,’ he said, ‘the good old-fashioned kind that comes from a pure, warm heart and the evil kind that is conjured by sorcerers from darkness. But I can feel no darkness here, can you, Mette?’

I turned within the shelter of his arm and his dear, kind face was very close to mine. ‘No,’ I said with a smile. ‘I feel only lightness of heart.’

‘I am glad, for I feel the same.’

His kiss was gentle, but there was passion in it that demanded a response and, to my surprise, I gave it readily. I had not been kissed with ardour since my husband Jean-Michel had disappeared from my life before the Battle of Agincourt and twelve years of unrecognised need suddenly surged through me like the spring sap rising all around us. I was forty-one and by now should surely have shrivelled with the frost of winter, but it seemed that, like the plants in the manor herb garden, I had not. Geoffrey’s unexpected desire awakened in me a desire I had thought belonged only to the young.

Breathless, I drew back and stared at him, eyes full of unspoken questions of the kind not usually asked by matrons with plump cheeks and wimples.

He nodded. ‘Oh yes. That Hadham magic you spoke of is working everywhere.’ He stroked the side of my face with the back of his hand and his own face creased in a smile. ‘I always knew there was a wild creature hiding behind that practical façade of yours, Mette. I cannot tell you how much I want to pull off that coif and run my fingers through your hair.’

I found myself laughing – or giggling might be a more accurate word for it, however undignified it sounds. ‘You would find many streaks of silver, I am afraid.’

‘Not would, Mette, will, if they be there at all. This kind of magic must be caught and treasured, particularly if it strikes in our autumn years. Soon, very soon, we will find a time and place and we will love each other until the winter turns our heads frosty white.’ He took my hand, tucked it into the crook of his arm and we walked on together towards the footbridge. ‘Do you think we dare venture over into youth’s playground? Or might we find that they are behaving even less discreetly than we are and wish we had not interrupted?’

My mind was reeling from his frank expressions of love and need and I was at a loss for words to respond, so I pushed the thought of future possibilities away to concentrate on the present. ‘I – I am not sure. Catherine has been headstrong in the past, but she is not wanton; far from it. The convent still guides her moral path. However I think I would rather not risk it.’

We turned away upstream towards the sluice, where we watched the water swirl and tumble over the lip into the pool in poignant imitation of my turbulent emotions.

G
eoffrey was a diplomat in everything he did. I did not have to tell him that I was reticent about making our new intimacy public; he remained affable and courteous, as always, but managed to avoid appearing any more friendly towards me in front of the others than he had before, for which I was grateful. On the other hand, Catherine and Owen wandered back over the bridge looking awkward and self-conscious. I smiled inwardly, thinking that only young lovers in the first throes of discovered passion could imagine that the glow of their new-found ardour was not obvious to all. Theirs burned like a forest fire. I concluded that Geoffrey and I had no need to hide our own newfound feelings for each other because Owen and Catherine would not have noticed if Cupid’s darts had been protruding from our foreheads, they were too enraptured by each other.

‘I would not be surprised now if Catherine suggested that we stay here overnight,’ I remarked to Geoffrey as we followed them back through the garden, trying not to laugh out loud as they made heroic efforts not to let their hands come into contact and failed miserably on several occasions. Nervous though I was of this rapidly developing romance, I had to admit that viewed dispassionately and without prejudice they made a well-matched couple for he had an archer’s swift, light step and she walked with the confidence of a queen. They were both slim-hipped and lissom and held themselves erect with heads high on long, supple necks. Even in their drab, ill-fitting disguises they paraded like high-bred race-horses.

‘I thought you said she was not wanton,’ murmured Geoffrey, careful to ensure they did not hear.

‘Nor is she,’ I hissed back. ‘But this place has a way of making one light-minded. You said you had felt it yourself.’

He cocked an eyebrow at me. ‘I felt a lightness of heart rather than mind, but that was down to you, not the location.’

I found myself blushing, but pretended it was indignation. ‘Well Catherine is sensitive to atmosphere even if you are not, and I believe Hadham will have exerted enough influence to make her want more of what she has found here.’

‘And I believe it is the handsome Owen who is the main attraction and Hadham only a means to an end. But we shall see.’

He proved the more prescient, for Catherine made no mention of staying at the manor. Instead she asked the seneschal if he thought there was time for her to visit the church before leaving to ride back to Hertford. ‘We do not want to be caught by the dusk but I would like to pray for a while in that beautiful church.’

The seneschal bowed. ‘By all means, my lady.’ He had obviously decided that whoever she was, she was no common female, regardless of her care-worn garb. ‘It wants three hours until sunset. The church is always open but the priest is often in the fields at this time of day. If you like, I will go and find him.’

‘That will not be necessary, thank you,’ she replied, ‘but some light refreshment before we leave would be very welcome.’

We walked to the church of St Andrew, an unusually splendid place of worship for a small out-of-the-way manor, because after it had been selected by an early bishop of London as a retreat, he needed somewhere worthy of his standing in which to pray. Over the years generous donations to that end had been made by wealthy Londoners in return for indulgences to offset their sins. Many a Cheapside merchant must have hoped to reach heaven by contributing to the raising of St Andrew’s flint-stone walls.

Catherine, with her ingrained reverence for the Church, was delighted by the wide nave with its fine arched bays and the soaring chancel with its beautiful stained glass east window and she went immediately to kneel at the bishop’s prie dieu near the altar, but the rest of us were more drawn to the graphic paintings on the plastered walls of the side aisles. In the right-hand aisle brightly coloured pictures displayed the glories of paradise and the heavenly rewards offered to the righteous and in the left a dramatic mural in black, browns and reds showed the terrors of hell and the evil faces of the devil and his demons tormenting wrongdoers for all eternity. I lingered for some time over a crude depiction of an adulterous woman being torn from her lover’s arms and dragged down to the flames by an ugly winged imp and I wondered what afterlife tortures awaited a middle-aged widow contemplating extramarital fleshly pleasures with a kindly widower.

‘Queen Catherine has the better idea,’ said Geoffrey quietly in my ear. ‘She turns her back on such grim warnings and her face towards Christ’s consolation.’

His humanity made me smile. ‘That is because she believes the grim warnings,’ I said, ‘whereas I have my doubts.’

‘Ah.’ In the fold of my skirt his hand found mine and squeezed it. ‘Then we can look forward to sharing heavenly doubts as well as earthly delights.’

The ride back to Hertford was a cheerful one for we were buoyed up by our own private exhilarations and so all the way along the quiet bank of the Ash we sang carols lustily, led by Owen whose strong tenor kept up a seemingly unending supply of verses while Catherine’s light treble voice, my lower alto and Geoffrey’s rousing baritone made quite a tuneful chorus.

Catherine rode beside me, not wishing to appear too intimate with Owen – or at least I assumed that was the reason. However when we were far enough ahead of the men to converse without being overheard she abruptly shattered my complacent belief that the new understanding between me and Geoffrey was still our secret.

‘I saw you kissing Master Vintner, Mette,’ she said suddenly. ‘Is there something I should know?’

I hesitated, collecting my thoughts enough to summon an evasive reply. ‘I might ask you the same question, Mademoiselle. We did not venture over the footbridge at the river for fear of interrupting something between you and Master Tudor.’

‘Is that so?’ She cast me a sidelong look. ‘But I asked the question first. I thought you and Master Vintner were just friends.’

‘We are friends,’ I said, ‘and have been so for some years as you know, albeit for some time at a distance. I wonder though whether a queen and a servant can even be friends, let alone anything more.’

She coloured violently under her drab hood, protesting, ‘You and I are friends!’

‘Yes we are, but not without attracting our share of slur and censure – and ours is only a friendship, not a love affair. You must be very careful, Mademoiselle.’

She would have flared up then, were it not for the two men riding a few yards behind us. As it was she set her jaw in a stubborn line and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘We will talk about this later. I should not have touched on the subject of your kiss. I am sorry.’

I sought to lighten the mood with a mischievous smile. ‘But I am not sorry – for the kiss I mean. In fact, if you want the truth, I rather enjoyed it.’

Her expression softened and she returned my smile. ‘Did you, Mette? Did you indeed? Well, well.’

No more was said on the subject because at this point we had to manoeuvre into single file in order to negotiate an overhanging tree and we rode the rest of the way in close formation. However I was grateful that she did not take long to seek an opportunity to continue the conversation because whatever opinions she held about my relationship with Geoffrey it was at least unexceptional, whereas I feared that an affair between the queen mother and a Welsh squire would attract the wrath of the world and, more seriously, its vengeance.

After Mass the following day, she asked me to bring our cloaks for warmth and steered me through the privy garden to the turf-seat in the centre, a bank of grass under an arch of rose briars affording a clear view of anyone approaching for twenty yards all around. Luckily the grass was dry and once we had settled ourselves, Catherine launched straight into the topic on both our minds.

‘When I told you that I saw you kiss Master Vintner, I did not mean you to think that I disapproved, Mette,’ she said. ‘In fact I am glad if there is love between you, for you have been sadly lonely for too many years.’

‘No more lonely than you, Mademoiselle. But nothing is settled between me and Geoffrey Vintner. I am far more concerned about what may have occurred between you and Master Tudor.’

She avoided my gaze, restless fingers smoothing the dagging on the sleeve of her gown. ‘What do you imagine may have occurred, Mette?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Let me put it this way. I imagine that a log shifted on sleeping embers and sparks flew, but I do not believe that any flames have leaped yet.’

Catherine’s head remained down but after a short pause, a gurgling laugh rose in her throat. ‘My goodness, Mette, how long did it take you to come up with that metaphor?’

Beguiled by her mirth I let my guard drop. ‘Actually it was Geoffrey who came up with it. I thought it summed up the situation perfectly.’

Steely blue eyes were suddenly drilling into mine. ‘You discussed my affairs with Master Vintner?’

There was no longer any point in being cautious. ‘Of course I did, Mademoiselle. He is your treasurer and the only lawyer you can trust to give you accurate advice and not carry information straight to the council of regency.’