The Forbidden Queen. Anne O'Brien
Well—that is, it did. Before I became married to you.’ I thought he must be mad to ask so obvious a question.
‘Why?’
Should I be honest? I decided that I would be so, since it no longer mattered. ‘Because she has a will of iron. She does not like to be thwarted.’ His regard was speculative, not judgemental, but I thought he did not understand what I was trying to explain. ‘She has a need to be obeyed.’ I gave up. ‘Perhaps your mother is more kindly,’ I added.
‘My mother is dead.’
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t remember her. But my father’s second wife was not unkind to me.’ A brief shadow of some fleeting emotion crossed his face. ‘She was kind when I was a boy.’
‘Is she still alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you see her?’
‘Not often now.’
‘But she was kind to you.’
‘I suppose she was.’
He was not effusive, and I thought there was a difficulty there. There was certainly no close connection with the lady.
‘So you will never understand about my mother,’ I said.
‘Perhaps not.’ He picked up my hand, and turned it over within his, smoothing his thumb over my palm. There was a little frown between his brows. ‘But the French Queen is not here now. She no longer has jurisdiction over you. You need tremble no more.’
It made me laugh, as it struck home that Isabeau was gone and what passed between us now was not her concern, and never would be again. I no longer trembled; indeed, I admitted to a heady sense of euphoria quite foreign to me. Freedom was a thing of beauty, unfurling like a rose.
‘The jurisdiction over you,’ Henry stated, ‘is now mine.’
My eyes leapt to his face. And I stopped laughing, uncomfortable under that direct stare, for he had not smiled. It had been no pleasantry. Would I find him a hard taskmaster?
‘My mother ordered all my days,’ I ventured.
‘And so shall I,’ Henry responded. ‘But it will be no hardship for you.’
Releasing my hand, he stood and walked away from me, leaving me not knowing what to say. I searched for something innocuous, since he offered no easy conversation. Perhaps Henry did not have easy conversation. I grasped at the obvious, too nervous to sit in silence.
‘Will we go to England soon?’
‘Yes. I want my heir to be born in England.’
He was looping a chain of rubies from round his neck to place, very precisely, on the top of a coffer, then sat to pull off his soft boots.
‘Tomorrow there is to be a tournament to honour our marriage,’ I remarked inconsequentially.
‘Yes.’ His reply was muffled as he pulled his tunic over his head.
I drew in a breath. ‘Will you fight?’
He looked up, lips parted as if to make some remark. Then shook his head and said: ‘I expect so.’
‘Will you fight for me?’
‘Of course. At any tournament you will be guest of honour.’
I thought it a strange choice of wording, but announced what, to my trivial female mind, mattered most at that moment. ‘I have nothing to wear to be guest of honour at a tournament.’
He concentrated on placing his sword and belt beside the glittering chain. ‘What about the gown you were wed in?’
A man’s response, I thought, but, then, he would not know. ‘I will not. It is borrowed—from my mother.’ I saw his scepticism, so tried for hard logic that might sway him. ‘It is French. I am now Queen of England.’
Arrested, and for the first time, he laughed aloud. ‘Have you nothing else? Surely…’
‘The gown made for me when we first met was abandoned in Paris—when we feared your attack and fled.’
His brows drew into a frown, as if I had reminded him of unfinished business on the battlefield, then his expression cleared. ‘Clearly I owe you a gown. I’ll send to arrange it.’
‘Thank you.’ This was not so bad, and I ran my tongue over dry lips. ‘I would like a cup of wine.’ There were things I wanted to say. Wine might help to dissolve the weight in my chest and loose my tongue.
He tilted his chin, as if he rarely poured his own wine, or if he considered my request unwise, but proceeded to present me with one of the lovely chased goblets with a little bow.
‘Don’t throw this one on the floor.’
I expected him to smile, making of it an amusement, but he did not, merely returning to pour a second cup for himself. Perhaps it had been an instruction after all.
‘The English ladies do not like me,’ I announced, sipping the wine.
‘They do not know you.’
I took another sip. ‘They say my mother is a whore.’
‘Katherine,’ It was almost a sigh. Was he shocked? ‘It is not wise to repeat gossip.’
I sipped again, not at all satisfied. ‘I wish to choose my own damsels.’
‘Who would you choose?’ His brows all but disappeared into his hair again.
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.
‘I have already chosen them—you have already met some of them at the banquet,’ Henry remarked matter-of-factly. ‘It will be better it they are English as you will reside in England. Lady Beatrice will guide you in your first steps.’
‘Will you not be with me?’
‘Not all the time.’
So I was condemned to the company of the unknown Lady Beatrice. I hoped she was not the opinionated brunette. I sipped again, the warmth dulling the ferment in my belly as Henry began, moving with an agile flex of muscles, to address the ties of his shirt.
‘May I keep Guille?’
‘Who is that?’
‘My chambermaid.’
‘If you wish.’ He did not care.
Henry continued to remove his garments until he stood in immaculately close-fitting hose. Nervously I concentrated on the hue of the wine in my cup and dredged up another irrelevant question.
‘What is your stepmother’s name?’
‘She is Joanna. From the house of Navarre.’
‘Will I meet her? Does she live at Court?’
‘No. She lives in seclusion. Her health is not good.’ He took a breath as he stood beside the bed, towering over me. ‘Katherine.’ It seemed that Henry did not wish to speak of Madam Joanna, and I thought he was growing impatient.
‘Has your mother, in her wisdom and undoubted experience, told you what to expect?’ My eyes snapped up to his face, all the comforting wine-induced warmth dissipating, seeing that his mouth was set in an uncompromising line of distaste, and not for the first time I wished that my mother had been more circumspect in her amorous dealings. My heart sank but I would not pretend what I did not know. Fear crept steadily back to engulf me, like a winter fog rolling across bleak and chilly water meadows.
‘No,’ I announced. I thought he sighed again. ‘She said you were so experienced that it would not matter that I had none and was raised in a convent.’ And I found within me a sudden desire to shake him out of his cold self-possession. I gulped a mouthful of wine. ‘She said that