The Tudor Bride (56 page)

Catherine flung the letter down, tears of frustration brimming in her eyes. ‘Perhaps he does but I cannot read it. He might as well have written the whole letter in Welsh. I have heard him talk of the place you mention, but it does not sound the way it is written. How long will he stay there?’

Hywell shrugged. ‘I do not know. I suppose it depends on what he finds when he gets there.’

Catherine rose from her seat at the board, marched to the fire and threw Owen’s letter on to the flames. ‘He had better start to worry about what he finds when he gets back here!’ she stormed, her voice breaking on a sob. Swinging round, she headed for the door to her solar and I hastened after her. It was very unlike Catherine to lose her self control in front of others.

I found her kneeling at her prie dieu, tears coursing down her cheeks as she gazed beseechingly at the image of the Virgin on the centrepiece of her altar triptych. I did not like to offer my own comfort when she was seeking it from a higher source, so I knelt quietly behind her hoping she would at least feel my supporting presence if Our Gracious Lady failed to supply sufficient solace. Within seconds she had turned into my arms, weeping in wretched, heaving sobs.

When she could speak it was in sharp jerks, punctuated with juddering gasps for breath. ‘Everything is going wrong, Mette. I cannot bear it. We were so happy – and now I feel abandoned. I have lost him. I am sure of it. I do not know what to do.’

I was shocked. How long had this feeling been eating into her? Was it that and not the physical prostration of pregnancy that was making her ill? So much of her personal wellbeing was invested in her relationship with Owen, that if she felt it slipping away it would be devastating for her.

With both my hands I gently lifted her head from my breast where the linen of my bodice had done little to muffle her heartbreak. I looked into the red-rimmed, blurred blue of her eyes and tried to pierce the despair I saw in them. ‘You are wrong, Mademoiselle. I am certain you have not lost Owen. He is yours for life. He told you so and swore it at your wedding. He is not a changeable man. He loves you.’

‘He loved me,’ she said, stressing the past tense. ‘But that was before I started to bear this child. I am ugly now and ill and he would rather be in Wales than here with a sickly, unsightly, misshapen wife. He has probably found a beautiful young girl to play his harp to and speak his barbarous native language with.’

‘You are not ugly or misshapen, Mademoiselle, you are beautiful. Nor are you ill, but pregnant and finding it tiring and dispiriting. Perhaps you should be glad that Owen is not here to see you in this state. If he says he is going to this place you cannot pronounce to visit his grandparents, then I am sure he is and I am sure they need his help.’

I smiled at her sad little face and wished I could magic all her cares away and that made me think of Margery Jourdemayne again. Could she make one of her image magic dolls that would ease suffering as much as cause it? Should I pay another visit to the wise woman and, this time, make my own purchase? Was there such a thing as white sorcery or did all charms and spells and magic arts deal to a greater or lesser extent with the devil’s black demons?

From His Grace King Henry VI of England and II of France to Her Grace the Dowager Queen Catherine.

Greetings to our honoured and beloved Mother,

At last we are able to write with some good news. In a few days we shall travel to Dover to bid Godspeed to our uncle of Gloucester who sails to Calais to confront a threatening advance from Flanders by the perfidious Duke of Burgundy. Our cousin Richard, Duke of York, has been appointed Commander in France and has sailed already for Normandy with fresh troops to defend our territories there. Calais itself is valiantly defended by our cousin Edmund, Earl of Mortain. We are confident that these actions will reverse the misfortunes which have beset our cause in France.

As we write of these events we are aware that many loyal members of our court and family are away fighting for our cause in France. The importance of the love and loyalty of family at such times is obvious, for these are the people upon whom we can most confidently rely. You will be relieved to know that until they all return victorious, we will be lovingly tended by our aunt of Gloucester, who has generously agreed to be our host at Greenwich.

Unfortunately we cannot visit you, my lady mother, as you may have expected. These are perilous days. However, we hope that you will find it pleasurable to come to court when the campaign has ended, to celebrate its success and to thank the staunch band of stalwarts who have defended our kingdoms from French aggression.

Until then we remain your ever loving and respectful son,

Henricus Rex

Written at Westminster this Monday the thirtieth of July, 1436.

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This letter arrived for Catherine soon after I returned from staying with Geoffrey in London, having paid a fraught but informative visit to Margery Jourdemayne on the way back. This time I had called at her house, a neat and well-maintained half-timbered cruck-cottage on the outskirts of Eye and close to the woods where I had met her previously. She had not appeared pleased to see me and pulled me swiftly inside, insisting that Walter, who had accompanied me, should take the horses into the woods and remain out of sight. When I told her the reason for my visit, she looked seriously concerned and told me that since our last meeting she had made several visits to Greenwich Palace taking various herbal ingredients and at least one more wax doll to Eleanor of Gloucester. At first I did not make any connection with Catherine’s pregnancy woes, but misgivings surfaced alarmingly when Margery went into more detail.

‘The duchess wanted a female image,’ she revealed, ‘and she wanted it to be big-bellied with child but she did not tell me who it was supposed to represent, nor did I ask. I assumed it had something to do with her efforts to conceive.’

That was when I asked her if she thought there was any chance that the new doll was meant to represent Catherine, but she just shook her head and said she did not know.

‘There are often other people there, usually two men in robes like priests. They look at me funnily, as if they’re trying to read my mind. They give me the shivers and I always try to get away from that place as quickly as possible.’ Then she gave me a potion which she said was a mixture of mint balm and powdered blood.

‘It will stimulate the female parts and give her strength for the birth,’ she said, grabbing my silver florin and trying to push me out of the door.

‘What sort of blood?’ I asked, clinging to the door-jamb. ‘My mistress will want to know.’

‘My husband is a cattle merchant,’ she said. ‘It is bullock’s blood. Now go, before anyone sees you!’

On the ride back to Hadham, I could not get the idea out of my head that Eleanor’s new wax image was intended to be of Catherine and that some form of sorcery was being practised against her, so I resolved not to give her the potion. Then, when she showed me the letter from King Henry, my thoughts took an even more sinister turn. I sat her down in her private solar, told her about my visit to Margery Jourdemayne and quietly voiced my innermost fears.

‘You know that I would not wish to worry you needlessly, Mademoiselle, especially in your condition when you are already fearful about the absence of Owen, but I feel I must tell you what troubles me about this letter. It is not that the king will no longer be coming to visit you, although I know that will be a great disappointment, what troubles me is that he will be staying at Greenwich with the Duchess of Gloucester instead of remaining at Westminster with his household of loyal and trusted retainers.’

Catherine turned her washed-out face to me, frowning. ‘Why, Mette, is there any danger in that? I admit that I do not like Eleanor Cobham, but I do not believe there is any real harm in her, barring her vaunting ambition.’

‘Well, I cannot be certain, Mademoiselle, but yes, I believe there is great danger in that very ambition. Remember that the Duke of Gloucester is now the heir to the throne. To put it bluntly, if your son were no longer alive, Humphrey would be king.’

Catherine stared at me, a look of bewilderment clouding her expression. ‘You surely cannot think that Gloucester means any harm to Henry? He hero-worshipped Henry’s father and whatever bad feeling there may be between me and Gloucester, I believe he is a God-fearing man who would not condemn his immortal soul by committing the ultimate sin. No, Mette. There is no question of that.’

She rose in agitation, but I put my hand on her arm. ‘You mistake me, Mademoiselle; it is not the duke I fear in this respect but his duchess.’

That flung her back into her chair as if her legs had lost all power. ‘The duchess? You think little Eleanor Cobham means harm to my son? No, Mette! I do not like her, but I cannot believe that.’

I dropped to my knees before her, taking her hands in mine to stop them shaking. ‘When she came to Hertford you saw that she is no longer “little Eleanor Cobham”, Mademoiselle, she is the Duchess of Gloucester and if your beloved son were not alive she would be Queen of England, a title I fear she may already have bartered her soul to possess. You say that the duke treasures his immortal soul, but he will be away in Flanders and I have good reason to believe that his duchess is a sorceress who is only too willing to pledge her soul, to the devil in return for earthly glory. Only listen and I will tell you why I believe this.’

Catherine did listen as I related the whole story of my encounters with Margery Jourdemayne and her involvement with the ambitious Eleanor. The only element of the tale I omitted was the king’s birth ‘behind the veil’ and the powers believed to adhere to the caul, which meant I could not tell her of Eleanor’s acquisition of it and the possibility of using it in magic against the king. I thought it dangerous to burden Catherine with such fears when she was so close to giving birth again.

As my tale unfolded, she appeared to shrink further and further back into her chair as if she wished it might swallow her up. At the end she sat in stunned silence. When she found her voice, however, she was suddenly filled with such energy that, had I not known better, I might have suspected her of having consumed the whole bottle of Margery’s blood and balm tonic in one gulp.

‘We must go to Henry,’ she said, leaping to her feet. ‘Pack the saddle bags, Mette, and find whichever men you can to accompany us. Thomas and Walter would be good because they know the places where we can seek shelter between here and Westminster. We must go as far as we can today in order to catch Henry before he leaves for Dover.’

I was taken completely by surprise. I had expected her urgently to seek pen and paper, but not to feel impelled to rush to Henry’s aid in person.

‘But, Mademoiselle, you cannot ride! Not when you are so near your time. Send Thomas or Walter with a letter, or I will go with them and see the king, but not you – it is too dangerous for the babe.’

‘Nonsense, babies come when they will and go when they will and not because you ride a horse or fall down a stair. I have lost them for no reason and kept them against all odds. The king is what matters now. He will not listen to you. Only I can persuade him of the danger he is in if he goes to Greenwich. This baby must take its chance. Be sure to pack my most splendid and voluminous mantle to disguise my belly when I get to court. Please, Mette, do as I say. We are losing daylight.’

There was no dissuading her. Within an hour we were in the saddle, Catherine and I riding side by side with Thomas leading and Walter at the rear. I calculated that we had about six hours of daylight and could make it to Enfield before dark if Catherine was able to ride for that length of time. Whenever I glanced across at her she smiled back, a small, determined twitch of the lips which told me nothing other than that she had noticed my glance. She was pale and tense and sat her horse stubbornly astride, despite my suggestion that she ride sideways, as I did. Her swollen belly looked incongruous and uncomfortable, tucked behind the pommel of a saddle which was made to fit a lady of normal girth, not one less than a month from giving birth. Fortunately the weather was fine, if anything rather too hot for comfort and the horses sweated at first until we stopped at Ware to water them in the River Lea. Thomas had been setting the pace at a fast walk in deference to Catherine’s condition, but at this point she suggested we pick up the speed to a trot, at least intermittently.

‘We must get to Enfield tonight, otherwise we will not get to the king in time,’ she fretted. ‘I am worried that he might leave for Dover early tomorrow.’

‘Perhaps you should ride at the front with me then, Madame, and you can set the pace,’ Thomas suggested. ‘Then we can slow up whenever you start to feel uncomfortable.’

However, we were reckoning without Catherine’s fierce determination and in the end it was not she who initiated a slower pace but me. Neither I nor Genevieve were in the flush of youth and after another two hours I feared my old mare might crumple under the strain of the punishing pace Catherine set. Because she was riding ahead of me, I could not see how she was faring but I began to ease my palfrey up and gradually dropped back into a walk, alarmed at Genevieve’s heaving flanks. I could not believe that the heavily pregnant lady, who that morning had been almost prostrate with despair at my conviction of Eleanor Cobham’s devilish activities, was now apparently able to drive her horse and herself to the point of exhaustion.

When she finally noticed that Walter and I were no longer trotting at her horse’s heels, Catherine drew rein and waited for us to catch up. By now we were on the Great North Highway where there was plenty of traffic on foot, cart and horseback and little danger of attack from footpads. The tower of Waltham Abbey loomed on the horizon to the east and it wanted only three more miles to Enfield. The sun was a huge ball of red in the western sky, marbled with wisps of grey cloud. As Genevieve ambled wearily up to the other horses I noticed that although Catherine tried to remain ramrod straight in the saddle, her aching muscles hunched her forward over the pommel. Her face under her straw sunhat was a white blur against the glaring sunset.