Blood Royal. Vanora Bennett

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      In this respect, at least, Owain found he was guiltily enjoying her contempt for his adopted country – so much he almost nodded.

      She put a sympathetic hand on his, and looked deep into his eyes again. ‘Shall I tell you how things are here?’ she went on. ‘Norman, Picard, English, German, Fleming, Provençal, Spaniard, Venetian, Roman, you name it, they’re all here. The colleges have bursaries, too, so good students don’t have to pay for their own studies. You just have to enrol at a college that deals with your nation – they count four nations, and the one that’s called the English nation takes the English and the Germans and Flemings and Dutch too. Why ever wouldn’t they take the Welsh? If you were ever to want to go to university in Paris, there would be no problem. And if they turned you down, it certainly wouldn’t be because of your nationality.’

      There was a deliberately comical look of astonishment in her eyes at that outlandish notion. She was shaking her head.

      ‘Eat up,’ she said, suddenly purposeful, and he let himself be drawn to his feet. ‘Let’s go.’

      It was late when they came back from the University. But Owain’s eyes were still shining.

      She said: ‘I’ll put another book out for you. For when you’ve finished this one. It’s one of my early ones, something I wrote when Jean was going to go away to England. Advice to a young man; on how to learn to learn. I thought it might appeal.’

      His face lightened even more; then suddenly darkened with memory. He said: ‘But I’ll have to go …’

      She said: ‘How long can you stay?’

      He fell silent. He scuffed one toe against the other foot. She could see him remembering his pointless existence; waiting in palace corridors; being left out by English pageboys and aides with a proper claim to their lords’ time. ‘My lord of Clarence will be off in a day or two,’ he said eventually. He eyed her for a moment, as if thinking.

      What Owain was fumbling towards articulating was that he wanted to find a way to stay on after Clarence left. These Parisians – fearful as they all seemed, with the memory of their conflict so recent on them that you could practically smell the blood on them, so fresh that they didn’t yet have words to talk about it – were, at the same time, full of a joy he didn’t know: the pleasure of being here, where they were, doing what they did. They knew something that made it almost irrelevant if the great men of the day destroyed each other over their heads. They might tremble at the profound crisis they were caught up in, and mourn the passing of the established order of the world they knew. But they believed in something universal that couldn’t be destroyed. They were putting their hope in beauty. Owain had never had a day when so many enticing futures opened up before him. He didn’t know whether he wanted to go and enrol at the University, or just stay in this house with these warm, kindly people and read himself into the life they lived. But he wanted to be here.

      ‘Did Anastaise tell you?’ she asked, as if she were changing the subject. ‘She took a poultice this morning to an old woman with sores under her arms that Anastaise said looked like plague sores.’

      She saw the flicker on his face; she didn’t think it was fear. ‘I’m wondering,’ she went on. ‘Perhaps I should tell my lord of Clarence you’ve been exposed to the miasma, out here in the town. Perhaps I should suggest you stay on until a doctor gives you the all-clear.’ She poured him a cup of wine. ‘You could rejoin them at Calais later,’ she murmured; the voice of temptation. Then, realising that the Duke of Clarence might well be heading straight back to Normandy to go on making war, she added, with asperity, ‘or wherever the Duke prefers.’ She put the jug down. There was a hint of mischievous laughter in her voice when she said: ‘After all, it would be a service to him to make sure his men didn’t get ill.’ She could take Owain to meet a friend or two from the University in the next few days; set wheels in motion.

      ‘But,’ Owain said, hesitating naively, ‘there wouldn’t be a risk of illness. I haven’t really been exposed to any miasma, have I?’ Hastily, he added: ‘Though I would love to stay …’

      She caught his eye – a challenge. She raised her eyebrows. Cheerfully, she said: ‘Well, then – lie! It would be in a good cause. I can’t imagine God would mind.’ And when she saw the disbelieving grin spread over his face, she knew he would.

       FIVE

      The English hunted for a day with the Queen. The next day, they invited Catherine and her ladies to hunt with them. Queen Isabeau said no. Perhaps she didn’t want to goad Louis any more. Perhaps she just didn’t want to be reminded that her daughter had no ladies to speak of – that the two youngest royal children, more or less forgotten on the edge of the court, lived the peculiar, twilight, scrounging existence they did. So the English left by dusk that night, in the purposeful flurry of green and brown that seemed to be their way. And, a day later, everything was back to normal – at least, back to the upside-down normal of the times of the King’s illnesses.

      Catherine and Charles sat idly in the garden together. It was too hot to be inside. Their mother’s door was shut. The servants weren’t there. There was no food. As usual, there was nothing to do.

      Charles threw a pebble into the fountain, trying to make it skim and bounce. It went straight down. But he was whistling. She could see he was glad the English had gone, with their marriage proposal.

      ‘I tell you what,’ he said, a few failed skims later. ‘I heard Mother and Marguerite whispering away together earlier. Planning something. Both looking really excited.’ He did an imitation of evil busily on the loose: hunching his shoulders forward in a one-man conspiracy, jokily narrowing his eyes into devil slits, darting them furtively from side to side, smacking his lips and leering. ‘Of course they shut up when they noticed I was listening. But I bet I know what they’re up to. They’re going to get their own back on Louis for being rude to the English Duke.’

      Catherine sighed. They were both scared of their mother’s temper; and her plots.

      But there was nothing else to look forward to. ‘I wonder what they’ll do to him?’ she said, a little apprehensively. Charles didn’t reply. After a long moment’s silence, she picked up a pebble herself.

      They were lying under an apple tree in the orchard, flicking twigs up at the unripe fruit, when Christine appeared an hour later, calling for them.

      She had a basket on her arm. She had a young man with her.

      They hardly noticed him. They flew at her; two raggedy children, calling in thin, eager voices, ‘Christine! Christine!’ and ‘What’s in your basket?’ and ‘I’m starving!’ They dived at the basket and, with tremendous animation, began laying out the food she’d brought. Very ordinary food. Early strawberries. Some cheese in a cloth. Last night’s beef leftovers. A couple of eggs. A hunk of bread.

      ‘Can we eat now?’ Charles was begging, hanging on Christine’s arm. ‘Please?’ A funny little thing, Owain thought: eleven or twelve, but undersized, like a much younger boy, with a white face and a rabbit’s red eyes and a big, bulbous nose. His voice was squeaky and babyish. And why was a prince of France dressed like that? In old rags that Owain would have been ashamed of wearing; dirty, too?

      Then he turned to the little Princess, who was sitting on the long grass, unwrapping the cloth from round the cheese with the tender excitement of someone who’d never seen СКАЧАТЬ