Blood Royal. Vanora Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ of Vendome; when Vendome turned to the Baron of Ivry; when Ivry muttered, ‘Braquemont?’, and finally, when Gontier Col indicated Jean and wheedled, wringing his hands, ‘My lord Bishop, my colleague Jean de Castel is best placed to explain some of the technical difficulties …’

      The eyes all fixed on Jean. I’m no one; why leave it to me? he thought, with a mixture of despair and panic, hating his superiors for their cowardice. Trying to stop his gut churning, he put suddenly damp hands on the table to keep them still, and stood up. It was important not to show fear.

      He bowed his head, and suddenly, mercifully, was so sick of the lot of them, French and English alike, that it became easy to tell the truth. ‘My lord Bishop, Michaelmas is less than three months away,’ he said baldly. ‘The French government couldn’t hope to lay hands on enough gold to mint the coins you want, if you insist on September.’

      He sat down. There was another anxious little flurry from the rest of his delegation. Hands fluttered; heads cringed. He kept his eyes fixed on his white fingers. ‘My lord Bishop,’ he heard Bourges murmur, ‘my young colleague overstates the position, I fear. Naturally we would be able … but, of course, difficulties … undeniable. Yes indeed. Difficulties.’

      Bishop Beaufort bared his teeth. He got up. So did his men-at-arms. ‘My master has heard a lot about difficulties,’ he said. ‘All our talks seem to end with this word, difficulties. You can talk to him about your difficulties at council this evening, if you like. But it’s time you realised that making peace requires you to find ways to overcome your difficulties.’ He swept out.

      ‘You said the wrong thing,’ the Archbishop told Jean, with the glaring-eyed anger that the weak reserve for those they know to be weaker. Jean pursed his lips. So it was to be his fault now?

      At six in the evening, they were called back into the crowded hall. The King was there this time. Henry of England still didn’t speak. He just kept drumming his fingers and staring at the French.

      Archbishop Chichele of Canterbury read out a memorandum in Latin. It described Henry of England’s many attempts to negotiate. It said he’d been kept from his French heritage for too long. It accused the King of France of being unwilling to search for fair peace. It said Henry of England, ‘injured by French duplicity’, would now be ‘obliged’ to search for his rights in another way.

      As soon as Chichele had finished reading, Henry of England got up and left the room, followed by his senior advisers, followed by the small fry. There were no more speculative, knowing glances between English and French. All the English were looking away. With dread, Jean de Castel realised that those averted English eyes marked the end of diplomacy and the beginning of war.

      Henry of England wrote one more reproachful letter to the King of France. From Southampton, he offered King Charles 50,000 crowns off Catherine’s bride price, if the French King would only give up his unreasonable resistance to peace. Then Henry of England set sail for France, to make war.

      The embassy to England was back in Paris by the time the King of France received the letter. The besieged port of Harfleur was already almost in English hands, and when it fell it would lay open a great chunk of northern France to the invader: Normandy, Rouen, and the Seine river-supply route all the way to Paris. The Archbishop of Bourges was shaking his venerable head at the letter.

      ‘Well, what am I to reply?’ King Charles said helplessly, and the ambassadors shook their heads and murmured. The King’s hands were shaking; the letter was fluttering, ready to drop from them.

      Jean de Castel spoke up from the back. His heart was racing.

      ‘Don’t trust a word he says, my lord,’ he said, and the King’s eyes fixed beseechingly on him. ‘He doesn’t want to marry your daughter. He wants to conquer your country. He is not a man of peace.’

      The King of France’s reply to Henry of England was as gentle as ever, agreeing on the need for peace. But Jean de Castel was pleased to see that the final draft of the letter, sent only after the distressed King had briefly fallen ill again, still contained one drop of acid he hoped his words had inspired. Where the King had addressed Henry of England’s demand for the Princess, he had written: ‘It does not appear that the means you have adopted are proper, honourable or usual in such a case.’

      Catherine’s mother organised a ball to celebrate the return to court of the noblemen united under the Count of Armagnac – the Orleans faction – after their summer campaigning to contain the Duke of Burgundy. There would be no more festivities: after this one ball, the princes would be off to defend France against the English invader. So Isabeau threw herself into the evening with gusto, having more peacocks killed for the feast than had ever graced a single table before, and more musicians, jugglers, acrobats, candles and jewels gathered together too. Catherine counted as an adult now; her mother had had new dresses sewn for her. She was allowed to attend; to fan herself behind her feathers; to try her hand at worldly whispering with dance partners.

      The first person she spoke to was her cousin, Charles, the younger Duke of Orleans; a fair-haired, weak-mouthed, charming young man with a gift for poetry. ‘You look beautiful … very elegant … but thin,’ he said solicitously as they left the dance floor together. He looked much older than he had before the summer’s fighting, too, she thought; but she was wiser now, so she kept her peace.

      ‘You must have been worried for months,’ he went on. He fixed kindly eyes on her. He was trying to reassure her, she saw. He said: ‘The English marriage will never happen, you know.’

      ‘I do know,’ she replied wearily, and then she suddenly felt so soiled, so humiliated by remembering her moments of past excitement at the prospect of that marriage, and everything that went with the memory of it – the other, forbidden memories, of the beauty of Owain’s face swimming down from above, and the heat of his skin on hers, and the touch of mouths and tongues – that she blushed a fierce, hot red, and burst into tears.

      Charles of Orleans patted worriedly at her, dreadfully embarrassed, turning her towards a shadowy corner of the hall so no one could see her loss of control, not knowing what else to do. She took a corner of her skirts and dried her own eyes. Then she managed a watery smile, and the determinedly brave words that were what her cousin wanted to hear.

      ‘I never wanted it anyway,’ she said.

       PART TWO

      The Book of Deeds of

      Arms and Chivalry

       ONE

      It was raining: a thin, hard drizzle that drilled into your skin and hurt your eyes. Owain, wet to the bones, was blinking it away. His legs, exhausted from the long day of riding, were still mechanically clamped to his horse’s sides; but the English advance had slowed to a painful walk and he didn’t think he could have stirred the horse, or himself, to do more, even if he’d heard the trumpets order a charge. His body was so tired he was in danger of letting the desolation of this autumn evening enter his heart. The other horsemen riding uncomplainingly beside and behind and ahead of him were dark shadows, slumped into their saddles, as overwhelmed as he was by the shadowy flatness all around and the impossibility of their mission. There was no СКАЧАТЬ