The Forbidden Queen. Anne O'Brien

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      Henry came to my bed that night. I did not think his heart was in it even though his body responded magnificently. It took very little time.

      ‘Stay with me,’ I invited in despair, as I had once in London, as he shrugged into his chamber robe.

      Why would he not stay with me? It was what I wanted more than anything, to lie in his arms and listen to him talk, of his own ambitions, of the loss of his brother. That was what I wanted more than anything in the world, and if I could show him that I was not treasonably French but a loyal wife who cared for his grief and the destruction of his plans, then it was all I could ask for.

      I watched from my bed as Henry, pulling up a low stool, sat to slide his feet into a pair of soft shoes. He stopped, arms resting on his knees, and looked down at his loosely clasped hands.

      ‘Stay,’ I repeated, holding out my hand. ‘I’m sorry I was angry. Perhaps I did not understand.’

      When he shook his head, I allowed my hand to fall to the bedcover, my heart falling with it, remembering that Henry did not like to be touched unless he invited it. Yet still I would try. ‘Do we go on to Lincoln by the end of the week?’ I asked.

      ‘I will go to Lincoln, yes.’

      ‘Where will we stay? Another bishop’s palace with no heating and poor plumbing?’

      ‘I will go to Lincoln,’ he repeated. ‘And you will return to London.’

      I felt the cold begin to spread outward from my heart. ‘I thought I would travel with you, to the end of the progress.’

      ‘No. It’s all arranged. You’ll travel to Stamford, then through Huntingdon and Cambridge and Colchester.’ Henry listed them, all already planned, everything in place, with no room for my own wishes. ‘They are important towns and you will make formal entries and woo the populace in my name. It is important that you are seen there.’

      ‘Would it not be better for me to be seen at your side?’ I asked. ‘A French Queen, whom you hold in esteem, despite the defeat?’

      ‘Your loyalty is not in question,’ he stated brusquely.

      I sat up, holding out my hands, palms up, in the age-old gesture of supplication. ‘Let me come with you, Henry. I don’t think we should be parted now.’

      But Henry stood and moved to sit on the bed beside me. At first he did not touch me, then he reached out a hand to stroke my hair, which lay unconfined on my shoulders.

      ‘Why would you wish to? You’ll be far more comfortable at Westminster or the Tower.’

      ‘I want to travel with you. I have seen so little of you since we were first wed, and soon you’ll be back in France.’

      ‘You’ll see enough of me,’ he remarked, as if it was a matter of little consequence how many hours we spent in each other’s company.

      ‘No.’ I twisted my fingers into the stiffly embroidered lions on his cuff, and said what I had always resisted saying. ‘I love you, Henry.’ Never had I dared speak those words, or even hint at my feelings, fearful of reading the response in that austere face. Now I said them in a bid to remain with him, to make him realise that I could be more to him than I was, and I waited wide-eyed for his response.

      ‘Of course. It is good that a wife loves her husband.’

      It was not what I had hoped for. Merely a trite comment such as Guille had made on my wedding night. My belly clenched with disappointment.

       Do you love me, Henry?

      I dared not ask. Would he not tell me if he did? Or did he simply presume that I knew? A voice whispered in my mind, a voice of good but brutal sense: He does not love you, so there is nothing to say. I held tight to the emotions that rioted nauseously within my ribcage.

      ‘Then stay with me tonight,’ I said before my courage could die. ‘If we are to be parted, stay with me now.’

      ‘I have letters to write to France.’

      I swallowed the disappointment that filled my mouth. I would not ask again. At that moment I knew that I would never ask again.

      ‘You must make ready to leave at daybreak,’ he said.

      ‘I will do whatever you wish,’ I replied, weakly compliant. But I knew in my heart that there was no changing his mind.

      ‘You will prefer it.’ Henry stood. You will prefer it, I thought.

      ‘I will be ready. Henry…’ He halted at the door and looked back. ‘You don’t really think I would rejoice in my brother’s victory, do you?’

      For a moment he looked as if he was considering the matter and my heart lurched. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you would. I know you have no love for the Dauphin. And I think you have little interest in politics and what goes on in the war.’

      I forced myself to show no reaction, no resentment. ‘So you don’t condemn me for my birth and past loyalties.’

      ‘No. How should I? I knew the complications when I took you in marriage. Don’t worry about it, Katherine. Your position as my wife is quite secure.’ He opened the door. ‘And will become even stronger when you give birth to England’s heir.’

      And he closed the door at his back, reinforcing the reason he had come to me when his heart was heavy with grief for his brother. Not for comfort, or to spend a final hour with me, but to get a child on me before he parcelled me off to London so that I might sit in the vast rooms of Westminster with the heir to England growing inside me.

      A bleak fury raged within me, a desolation so deep that I should ever have thought that he could love me. He did not. He never had, he never would. Even affection seemed to be beyond what he could give me. He could play the chivalrous prince and woo me with fine words, he could possess my body with breathtaking thoroughness, but his emotions were not involved. His heart was as coldly controlled as his outer appearance.

      And—the anger burned even brighter—he had judged me to be nothing more than an empty-headed idiot, incapable of comprehending the difficulties of his foreign policies or the extent of his own ambitions. I was an ill-informed woman who had little wit and could not be expected to take an interest. I may have been ill informed when he first met me, but I had made it a priority to ask and learn. I was no longer ignorant and knew very well the scope of Henry’s vision to unite England and France under one strong hand.

      It was during that lonely night that I accepted that, even as I grieved for Henry’s loss of a beloved brother, my marriage was a dry and arid place. Why had it taken me so long to see what must have been obvious to the whole court?

      I rose at dawn, my mind clear. If all Henry wanted was an obedient, compliant wife who made no demands on him, then that was what he would have. Not waiting for Guille, I began to pack my clothes into their travelling coffers. Obedient and compliant? I would be exactly what he wanted, and after Mass and a brief repast, both celebrated alone—Henry was elsewhere—I stepped into the courtyard where my travelling litter already awaited me. Before God, he was thorough.

      It crossed my mind that the accounts of taxes paid and unpaid might СКАЧАТЬ