The Tudor Bride (41 page)

‘You must persuade him, Agnes.’ Catherine clasped her friend’s hands tightly. ‘We have been together since we were five years old. I cannot bear to lose you for ever.’

I thought I had never seen Agnes looking prettier. She had abandoned her nun-like coifs and wimples and taken to wearing pretty gowns, mostly Catherine’s hand-me-downs, and dressing her hair like the young woman she was. Happiness seemed to radiate from her and I had an intuition that when the vows had been taken and the honeymead drunk there might well be an instant pregnancy to prevent her riding back immediately to Catherine. When I embraced her before she mounted her horse I dearly hoped it was not for the last time

For my own part, until I regained my full strength, I was happy to tend my little son and hand most of the domestic duties previously supervised by Agnes and me over to a competent widow from London whom Geoffrey had engaged on a temporary basis. The only drawback was that we had to be careful she did not guess the real identity of the mistress of the manor, which meant watching our tongues in her presence. However, since she had her own quarters and chose to take her meals separately, it was not too onerous a task and by the time September came and John Meredith had returned from Anglesey I was fit enough to take up the reins again. As I predicted, Agnes had already fallen pregnant and she and Hywell were to remain in Wales until the baby was born. Happy in her marriage and motherhood, Catherine made no comment other than to express joy for her friend. But I knew how badly she would be missing Agnes since often they would pray together and Catherine had found a lot of strength in her old friend from the convent who loved her like a sister.

Autumn came and we began the seasonal tasks of stocking up for winter. Wood was gathered and cut, meat was salted in barrels, fruits were dried and preserved and grain stored. Much of the hard labour was done by cottars from the village, overseen by Owen who was accepted by them as the Bishop of London’s appointed seneschal. One sad note to temper this period of happy productivity was that Anne lost the baby she was carrying. It was not a dramatic occurrence and she kept the loss to herself until Mildy noticed her sister’s listless pallor and pestered her for the reason. We all felt Anne’s despair and tried to comfort her, but work seemed to be the best healer and she busied herself supervising the women in the dairy, laundry and brewery and keeping as far away from the nursery as possible. Catherine and I of course spent much of our time there and in the gardens. I also picked and processed herbs to re-stock the medicine chest. Mildy looked after the cooks and kitchens and kept the keys to the spice cupboards and store rooms and sometimes accompanied Geoffrey on his frequent trips to London. He and I had to content ourselves with a hap-hazard sort of married life, but with little William in the cradle as compensation, we were happy enough.

Geoffrey always came back from these trips with news, especially of the war in France, and from the English point of view none of it was good. Despite Lord Edmund’s reinforcements, they had been forced to abandon the siege of Orleans and Charles’s forces had chased them out of the Loire valley, apparently inspired by the presence in their midst of Jeanne d’Arc, the strange soldier-girl from Lorraine. She had then escorted him to Rheims where, as she had promised, he had been crowned King Charles the Seventh of France. As Geoffrey imparted this news at the dinner table Catherine had remained impassive and made no comment, but when she raised her napkin to wipe her mouth I was sure I detected the hint of a smile behind it.

Before the autumn gales set in, Geoffrey was obliged to make another of his diplomatic journeys to Paris and, in view of the tense situation across the Sleeve, I fretted with Anne and Mildy until he sent word that he was safely back in London. His letter was short but it did contain the news that he would be coming straight to Hadham and bringing some unexpected visitors. ‘They are refugees – a woman and two children. From charity I urge you to prepare a chamber in the house for them,’ the terse message concluded. We were all agog.

The little cavalcade arrived on a cold, damp afternoon in early October, first Geoffrey on his big cob with a young girl riding pillion behind him. I watched from the entrance steps with William in my arms ready to greet his father and my heart began to flutter as they passed under the gatehouse and I saw the girl.

‘Catrine!’ I could not believe my eyes.

A laden cart came next into view with a hooded woman and a small child perched up beside the driver, followed by two hired men at arms.

‘My Alys!’ It was my daughter with her children, come all the way from Paris. I flew down the stair as swiftly as I dared while carrying my precious burden. Pleased though I was to see my husband, it was to the little girl on the pillion seat that I was rushing. Instead of the dimpled smile that I loved so much, her eyes were deep and sad and she did not speak or move, even in response to my greeting.

Geoffrey dismounted, passed the reins of his horse to a stable boy and came to greet me. ‘Jacques died two months ago and the baby Guillaume a week later,’ he told me in a low voice. ‘I found the rest of the family in a sorry state and persuaded Alys to let me bring them all here.’

He turned to lift Catrine from the pillion while Alys climbed down from the cart and helped Louise after her. I went to her, still holding William, and I wrapped my spare arm around Alys’s shoulders, tears spilling down my cheeks. ‘Oh my poor little daughter, you have lost your love and your baby too. May God give you strength to bear it.’

She clung to me, wailing. ‘It was the sweating sickness, Ma. Jacques caught it first and then the baby. They just burned up with fever. I thought we would all die.’

Alys’s sudden wails pierced nine-year-old Catrine’s grief-dulled mind and brought her to her mother’s side. ‘Do not cry, Mama. It will be all right now.’

I hurriedly passed William to Geoffrey and enclosed my daughter and granddaughters in my arms as best I could. ‘My brave girls! You have suffered a terrible loss, but now you are here with your family. God has brought you to us and He will bring you solace.’

Gradually over the next few days we heard the whole story. Through the crowded and airless streets of Paris in summer, the sweating sickness had spread like wildfire, claiming victims in every house and workshop. Crucially it seemed to favour men and boys over women and girls and the result left many families fatherless, struggling to support themselves without a breadwinner, Alys and her children among them. Even those robes and gowns that Jacques had completed were not collected or paid for because customers were too frightened of the sickness. The little money Alys had put by was soon spent and when Geoffrey arrived at the workshop he found them penniless and desperate. Even so it had taken a lot of persuasion to get Alys to abandon the house and business that she and Jacques had so successfully established. Eventually Geoffrey convinced her and found a reliable notary to undertake the sale of the Paris business and the house in Troyes which Jacques had inherited from his parents. With a little luck, on his next trip to Paris, Geoffrey would be able to collect the revenue from both and Alys would not lose everything by coming to England.

It had not been easy to get permits for the family to leave Paris or to enter England, but by pulling strings with the clerks of the Paris council, Geoffrey had been able to prove that Alys was his step-daughter and begin legal proceedings for her and her children to become his wards, giving them licence to accompany him to England. After all the emotion and upheaval of Alys’s arrival, it was only the following day that Geoffrey showed me a letter he had found lying in the Paris workshop, which had come to Alys through the council couriers at the Louvre. Luc had written again to tell her that she was now aunt to a little boy called Jean-Michel. He asked her to get word to me of this new addition to the family if she could.

I looked up from the letter with misty eyes. ‘Oh, Geoffrey, he is called after his grandfather!’

‘I knew that would please you. And now you have Jean-Michel’s daughter here as well. Your family is not entirely scattered or divided.’

As usual Geoffrey showed an intuitive sense of my inner thoughts and as the days and weeks went by and Alys and her two girls began to settle into life at Hadham, I realised how much I had to be grateful to him for.

Catherine expressed deep sympathy when I confided this feeling to her. ‘I know now how much it hurts to be apart from your children, Mette. I feel the lack of my Henry every day. So I am happy for you, but devastated for Alys of course. Can we persuade her to stay with us, do you think? Owen can find work for her in the household. Surely she cannot want to set up on her own in a strange country.’

‘She says she does not like to trespass on your generosity, Mademoiselle. She feels she should be able to provide for her children.’

‘And so she can, if she stays with me; but a widow alone with children faces a tough future, especially a Frenchwoman in England. When she is ready, Mette, you send her to me and I will explain how she can be of great help in my household, especially while we are without Agnes. Besides, Catrine is my god-daughter and I am only too happy to welcome her and her little sister into our growing brood – the more the merrier, is that not what they say?’

I felt a lump come to my throat as I fielded her beaming smile and reflected on how relaxed and comfortable Catherine had become since settling with Owen at Hadham. There was no doubt that the sophisticated French queen still lurked somewhere beneath the surface but, already swelling with her next babe, her present aura was of a calm and fulfilled mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings. I prayed daily that nothing would happen to ruffle her smooth feathers.

I
had feared disruption from officialdom in some way, but it came from a completely different source. When a chapman brought his pack to the village the following week, we in the house were unaware of his presence. He opened it in the churchyard and the village women soon flocked to inspect the contents spread out on the gravestones. I imagine it must have proved a box of temptations. Chapmen carried ribbons and braids, kerchiefs, buckles, belts, girdles, beads, needles and sewing threads, thimbles, charms, amulets, rosaries and reliquaries; anything small enough for the pack and pretty enough to attract the female eye. Every item would have been fingered and felt, unfolded and shaken and numerous purchases made and while he pocketed his coin and packed up his unsold produce, the pedlar also imparted some important news, which soon spread to the manor house.

‘There is to be a coronation, Mademoiselle,’ I told Catherine excitedly, having located her putting clean baby clothes away in one of the nursery chests. ‘King Henry is to be crowned in Westminster Abbey. Anne heard it from the dairy maids.’

‘When, Mette?’ she asked, heaving herself to her feet encumbered by her growing belly. ‘When is it to be?’

‘Next month, on the sixth of November I believe. There was a pedlar in the village and he told everyone.’

‘And I have received no invitation. Hah!’ Her harsh laugh was more like a bark, sharp with disappointment. ‘Evidence that the Duke of Gloucester is still conspiring against me, no doubt, but then I suppose I could not go anyway.’

My heart went out to her. ‘You should not need an invitation to your own son’s greatest moment – but you are right. It would be impossible for you to attend, invited or not.’

‘When did the pedlar come?’

‘This morning. He did not come to the house. I heard the news from a milk-maid.’

As it turned out we were lucky he had not come to the manor house, for pretty trinkets may not have been the only thing he carried.

The first villagers to fall ill were children. It was a form of pox. First they sickened and complained of headache and then spots began to appear all over their bodies; red blotches that produced little blisters like bubbles. Some children had only a few and soon recovered when these began to itch, but others were horribly afflicted and became insensible and delirious. Of these some, especially the babies, were quickly overwhelmed and died. Then the adults began to succumb as well and although few of them died, many were prostrated for days and left badly scarred from the blisters, which crusted into itchy scabs. Men crawled from their beds to try and bring in the harvest, but many of the late root crops and fruits were left to rot in the fields and on the trees.

Before anyone in the house fell ill, Owen urged Catherine to leave Hadham.

‘It is not safe for you or the babes, born and unborn.’ His usually carefree countenance was transformed by anxiety, deep lines creasing his brow. ‘You must go somewhere else, cariad, to one of your other manors, away from the contagion. Hatfield Regis is only seven miles away. It will be less of a risk to travel there than to stay here.’

‘But Hatfield is all tenanted, is it not? Would there be any supplies of food and is there anywhere for us to live?’ Catherine asked. ‘I have not heard that it even has a manor house?’

Owen shrugged. ‘There is a hunting lodge by the forest, although it is small – smaller than Hadham – but adequate, I think, for all the mothers and children – you and Mette and the babies, and Alys and her two and Anne and Mildy should probably go too. It need not be for long. You can return here as soon as the disease stops spreading. Hatfield town has a market where supplies could be bought. Besides it would ease the strain on the Hadham stores. They are much depleted due to the poor harvest.’

As usual Owen was attempting to put a gloss on an awkward situation and Catherine was not fooled, but she smiled. ‘I know you are telling me I must make the best of it and so I will. But how shall we explain ourselves to the local tenants? There is bound to be some curiosity about strangers who suddenly take up residence at a royal hunting lodge.’

Owen shrugged. ‘Hatfield is a large manor and the farms are scattered, but the tenants are used to me by now. I have visited them all, collecting rents and checking boon work. The lodge is on the edge of the forest where few people go and the penalties for poaching are fierce. Most will not even realise you are there and when they do I can tell them you are retainers of the king’s household who have been granted a royal favour. Thomas could even put your seal on a document that makes it look official.’