Blood Royal

‘We should all turn around now, and go back to Paris,’ she said icily. She added, in a different voice, full of a misery even she couldn’t quite hide: ‘I can come back and see my daughter next year.’

Owain remembered the softness of her eyes when she’d asked him to come to Poissy with her. The pity of it caught at his heart. He couldn’t let her miss this visit.

‘We can’t do that,’ he said, putting his hand on his sword hilt, feeling a man. ‘It wouldn’t be safe for just three of us to strike off back through the forest. If Catherine has left word in Paris of where she is, it would be much more sensible to stick with the group; come back tomorrow as we planned.’

For different reasons, both pairs of eyes now fixed on him were full of quiet relief. The trip need not be cancelled. He’d given a plausible rationale for riding on. He nodded reassuringly at them both, thanking God that neither of them knew how absurdly excited he felt at the adventure opening up before him – the prospect of hours in the woods, on horseback, with Catherine; and a pilgrim’s supper at an inn, later; and another long ride back to Paris tomorrow, following his lady.

Christine didn’t wait for any more discussion of whether they should cancel their journey. She just moved swiftly on to considering what should be said about the trip once they were back in Paris. She said: ‘I suppose we should say you just took it into your head to come to Poissy to visit your sister.’

There was no anger in Christine’s voice any more. She’d accepted Catherine’s presence. She was making the best of it. So there was no reason for Catherine to demur. Yet, at those words, the Princess frowned and fidgeted, and shook her head, and said sulkily: ‘Why? I’ve never even met my sister.’

Owain stared at her in wild surmise. Catherine clearly hadn’t the least wish to meet an unknown sister at the end of this journey. But what had she expected to be doing at Poissy, if not going into the women-only confines of the nunnery with Christine? Not … He blinked, feeling as blinded by the possibility dawning on him as if he’d stared straight at the sun … Not staying outside all day … sitting at some travellers’ inn … with him?

Christine’s patience, always limited, was at an end. ‘Well, you’re about to meet her now,’ she snapped. ‘Unless you want to tell your mother you just ran off to get away from her.’ And, standing up, she flicked crumbs off her skirts and called, in her most imperious voice: ‘Owain! Come; put away the food and get the horses untied. And bring Catherine’s up. We’ll be off in a minute.’

The abbey was inside a great wall that stretched for miles in every direction, in a landscape that seemed almost impossibly green and alive with birdsong and happiness.

The light was golden. There were deer between the trees on this side of the wall, and fishponds. Owain could see clusters of houses that must belong to the nuns’ male confessors and spiritual advisers, the doctors, the financial counsellors, the overseers, the cooks, the bakers, and the servants. Through the gate, he glimpsed more rooftops and the tall towers of a church inside the enclosure. He could hear the buzzing of bees. He knew he’d never see more. Men weren’t allowed inside the wall. His journey, and that of the other men who’d ridden with the women, ended here.

One by one, the men pulled up, dismounted, chatted to the gatehouse keepers. A couple of them, who knew the ways of this place, carried on down the lane that must lead to the town and the inn.

The women hardly seemed to notice. Their minds were on their meetings; on beloved faces hidden behind the walls. Their yearning eyes were fixed ahead. Their horses were almost trotting. They processed through the gate without looking back.

Owain stayed where he was, very still, shading his eyes to watch the women’s receding backs. He didn’t dismount until after one small head, with its cloak hood up, had turned briefly round from the gatehouse to look his way.

The women heard Mass.

Christine had forgotten the anger that had consumed her when she’d caught sight of Catherine. She couldn’t imagine feeling angry any more, not now she was listening to the soaring soprano voices. There was light pouring down from the window. She was happier than she remembered being anywhere else. Her heart was full of Marie’s embrace just now, and of the joy in those cornflower-blue eyes. She could still smell the pure innocence of her daughter’s skin.

There was a partition in the church, separating the nuns from the lay people of the town and beyond. But she was burning with the knowledge that her Marie’s shining little face, peeping out over the black habit trimmed with white fur that all the nuns wore, was just behind the barrier. Marie was probably letting her eyes rise, like Christine’s, to the ceiling, to gaze at the midnight-blue arches with their golden stars.

They were so pretty, all those girls with roses in their cheeks, all dressed alike.

She had to overcome her selfish sadness at only seeing her daughter once a year. Poissy was the closest you could come to Heaven on Earth. Marie was blessed. It had been right to bring her here.

Catherine would have known her sister anywhere. There were fifteen years separating them, but the unlined face bending towards hers, with a benign stranger’s curiosity, had the same long nose, green eyes and high cheekbones Catherine saw in her own mirror every day. They were of the same blood.

All Catherine had really hoped for from this journey was to have some time to talk to Owain. After yesterday, there was nothing else she wanted in the world but to pour out her heart to him. She wanted to tell him about Maman’s and Louis’ quarrels; about how Louis behaved to Marguerite to punish her for being her father’s daughter; about the butchers breaking in last year and how frightened she and Charles still were, especially in the night. She’d seen kindness in his eyes. He would listen.

Yet, for a while, on the road, after Christine had ordered her to meet Marie de Valois, Catherine had also let herself start to imagine that this saintly stranger sister might approve of their mother’s notion of marrying her to the King of England. The quarrel yesterday had brought the question of escape into her head again, more urgently than ever before. She’d have been grateful for a word of encouragement.

But now she realised that wasn’t going to happen. Her sister’s face had taken on a fastidious look as soon as Catherine had mentioned the English marriage – as if she’d smelled something bad. And she was still shaking her head.

‘Dishonourable,’ Marie said simply when Catherine finished. ‘A princess of the blood royal can’t marry the son of a usurper. Don’t let them bully you. Just say no.’

They seemed to do without flowery turns of phrase in the nunnery, Catherine thought resentfully.

‘The English have already tried this trick once, with Isabelle,’ Marie said. ‘She said no. You can too.’

Then, unexpectedly, she grinned. The lively mischief that came into her face made her look younger, and even more like Catherine. Catherine stared. She hadn’t expected a nun to look so cheeky.

‘Even I’ve said no to one of Maman’s mad marriage plans,’ Marie said, and she was clearly enjoying the memory. ‘Did you know?’

That was astonishing enough to make Catherine forget her disappointment. No one stood up to their mother; and if they did, they suffered. She looked at Marie’s laughing face with new respect. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

All she knew was what everyone knew – that Marie had been promised to the Church at birth, in the hope that giving a child to the nuns would please God enough to make him cure the King of his illness in exchange. God hadn’t kept his side of the bargain. But, at four, Marie had entered the nunnery anyway. And, at eight, she’d chosen to stay at Poissy forever, and had taken her vows.

But it seemed that wasn’t the end of the story. For when Marie was twelve, the Queen had changed her mind.

Marie said: ‘She just turned up here, one fine day, with our uncle of Orleans, and told me to leave with her. She’d decided to marry off one of her daughters to the Duke of Bar. And I was the right age, and not married. So she’d taken it into her head that the bride should be me.’

She laughed merrily.

Remembering the hard beds and endless prayer that must be Marie’s daily lot, Catherine thought: I’d have done it, without a second thought.

Perhaps Marie realised what she was thinking. The deputy prioress stopped laughing and said, more seriously: ‘When I thought about going back to court, I knew there was nothing I wanted less. Everything I’d known before coming here to Poissy had been so … dirty. Once I’d come here and known the peace of God, how could I go back?’

Catherine had always been told that life at court before the civil war had been civilised perfection; their uncle of Orleans a paragon of charm and intellect. She hardly remembered him. He’d been very tall. He’d jumped her on his knee. He sang. He’d had a light laugh and amused eyes, and a weak mouth. She still loved what little she remembered of him. But she could hear the ring of truth in Marie’s frank voice, too. It couldn’t have been so wonderful before, after all. Even as a small child, Marie had been searching for an escape.

‘I told Maman she’d brought me here, and I was dedicated to God, and I should stay. She didn’t want to hear. They spent hours trying to bully me into leaving. But I said: “You’ve made a gift to God. You can’t take it back.” In the end they went away. They hadn’t given up, though. They sent Papa, as soon as he got better, to try again. Dear Papa; he was sweeter than they were. He knew it was my right to choose; so he just asked me whether I would consent to leave. But what could I say? I told him, too: “I’ve promised to be the bride of Christ. I will hold to my vow unless you find me a better and more powerful husband.”’

She laughed, a little sadly. ‘I miss Papa, you know. I pray for him. But I couldn’t obey him. I knew he’d forgive me in the end; Maman too, she loves us all, really, God forgive her. But my conscience wouldn’t let me.’

Catherine sat, stunned, letting it all sink in.

‘You can say no to Maman too.’ Marie drove her point home. ‘Don’t let her dishonour you. She won’t mind; not really; she’s always changing her mind. He is too; it’s all whim and fancy with them.’

Crushed, Catherine faltered: ‘But … if she does insist?’

Marie’s face shone with the simplicity of virtue. She opened her arms. ‘Then come to God – here.’

Here they came, with their heads drooping like cut flowers pulled out of water: the women, returning from their visit with dragging feet, reluctantly rejoining the outside world.

Owain and the two gatemen who were to walk them to the inn, holding torches, got up. The first bats were fluttering in the luminous sky. The air smelled of cut grass. There was a clanking of keys.

Before he could make out which of the women was Catherine, or Christine, another female form came flying over the lawns behind them. A thin figure in black and white, calling softly, urgently, ‘Mother!’

All the women turned back. Owain could feel the painful hope rekindled in them.

But it was Christine who rushed into the black-and-white girl’s arms. The other women turned away.

Owain was outside the gate. But he still heard – everyone heard – Marie de Castel’s voice break as she muttered, ‘Please come back tomorrow. Just for an hour.’

Christine’s arms were around her daughter, rhythmically stroking her shoulders; she was kissing the top of her daughter’s head. The gateman moved closer, but he stopped when Christine looked up. He didn’t dare intervene. ‘Of course,’ Christine told her daughter softly. ‘Of course.’

Mother and daughter looked at each other with no more words, as if memorising each other in the failing light. Then Christine said, more brightly: ‘Won’t you miss dinner if you’re late?’ and, when her daughter nodded, ‘Run … I’ll be back … I promise … run now!’

But her hand followed Marie’s shoulder away. Even when her daughter was just a shadow again, flitting towards the refectory, Christine’s arm was still outstretched and her eyes tender as bruises.