Blood Royal. Vanora Bennett
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 food before. Like her brother, she was also in plain, old, crumpled clothes, with her skirts so much too long for her that they seemed made for someone else. She’d tied a knot in one side, perhaps to let her run or climb trees without tripping up. Her hair was loose; he could see a kerchief lying on the ground not far away. It was pretty hair; long and thick. But it was all tangles with bits of grass in it. She’d looked a young woman in the royal chambers, in her finery; but now she was nothing more than a scruffy child. Owain was wondering, rather disapprovingly, how these children came to look so neglected, when Catherine absent-mindedly lifted one hand, twisted her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, and turned to smile up at him.
And all at once Owain was lost for breath. How slim and long her neck was, how lovely the line of it, rising from her soft shoulders.
The sun was behind him. She was blinking a little, trying to focus her eyes on the tall shape before her; but he didn’t think she could really see him. He didn’t think she recognised him, or was remembering her own kindness in sparing his blushes at his Duke’s audience with her mother. She was only smiling that blind, vulnerable, enchanting smile out of a child’s pleasure at the presence of Christine, and the picnic, and something to do to relieve what he could see had been boredom.
But thinking those sensible thoughts didn’t stop the soft sense of wonder stealing through him as he stood and stared back, entranced by the sight of her, feeling his heart swell with joy.
It was Charles who broke the spell: Charles, wriggling and giggling around Christine, until she put firm arms on his skinny shoulders and said reprovingly, ‘Of course you can’t eat yet; not till I’ve introduced my guest. Where are your manners?’
That got the child’s attention all right. He turned straight to Owain, staring. Rudely, Owain thought; but then, whatever he was wearing, he was, after all, a prince of the blood, and allowed to stare at anyone he chose. He narrowed his eyes. ‘I know you!’ he cried, almost accusingly. ‘You’re the one who held the casket while the English Duke gave my sister a jewel. Aren’t you?’
Owain nodded, and bowed. ‘The very same,’ he said easily, doing his best to charm. ‘Owain Tudor.’ He’d half-turned to face the little boy; but he was blissfully, agonisingly aware, at the same time, of the girl looking up at him from below, muttering, with pink cheeks and a prettily awkward air, ‘I remember you now, of course, it’s just that you look different, out here in the sun.’
You must be informal, Christine had said; just call them by their names; no bowing and scraping. In the gardens they’re just children; they’re very quiet; shy; it’s wrong to scare them with formalities; we’re old friends. All the same, he wished now he’d put on something better than the simple tunic he was wearing. For reasons he didn’t understand, he wanted to cut as elegant a figure as he could.
Christine, also visibly keen to make the introductions go smoothly, said, in a special child-voice whose gentleness surprised Owain, ‘Owain is from a noble family of Wales – the kings of Powys Magog.’ She pronounced the Welsh words strangely, but he was surprised and flattered that she’d even tried to reproduce the unfamiliar name; flattered, too, that she was describing his lineage with such respect, when he’d got used, almost, to being all but invisible among Englishmen; to sitting below the salt; to being ignored. ‘I thought you’d enjoy showing him the gardens, and the lion.’
Little Charles didn’t look as though he’d enjoy that at all. For someone supposedly so shy, there was a definite aggression in his expression. He was scowling. He said: ‘But the English party is supposed to have gone. They told us in the kitchens. Why are you still here?’
Owain opened his mouth to make a soft reply. But he wasn’t sorry when Christine got there first. The truth was that he wouldn’t have been sure what to say about why he was still in Paris, or, indeed, at the Hotel Saint-Paul. Christine had suggested he come with her so he could see the famous gardens at the King’s favourite Paris home, though he’d had a feeling she really just wanted to show off her friendship with the King’s children. Not everyone was on such intimate terms with princes; and he’d begun to see that Christine, magnificent though she was, wasn’t above vanity.
‘Owain was only temporarily attached to the Duke of Clarence,’ Christine told the pouting little boy reassuringly. Owain could tell from the practised way she patted at him that this suspicious, feral child must often take a lot of reassuring. ‘He’s not with them any more. The rest of the English have gone, darling. I doubt they’ll be back.’ She patted again. The little boy’s eyes lost their fierce look. ‘But Owain wanted to stay on in Paris for a while to see if he’d like to study at the University. He’s my guest. And he’s reading my modest collection of books while he’s here. Racing through them. An example to all of us. An example to you!’ she finished brightly.
Little Charles wasn’t quite satisfied yet. But he put his concerns, whatever they were, to one side; nodded briefly at Owain, and said again to Christine, even more plaintively: ‘So can we eat now?’
Owain’s heart leapt. He saw that Catherine was still watching him from her place on the long grass, catching his eye so he’d be sure to notice her. She was shrugging slightly and casting her eyes upwards, in a quiet, friendly apology for her brother’s awkward manners.
He smiled back at her, grateful for the thought; wondering why she had her hand clamped, as she did, across her mouth. It looked like a gag. She didn’t seem conscious of it. It was an ugly gesture. Then she forgot him. She was hungry too. And she was still a child. As Charles threw himself down beside her, ready to snatch at the food she’d set out, she moved her hand, freed her mouth, turned a teasing grin on her brother, and plucked the bit of bread he was aiming for off its cloth. ‘Too late,’ she mumbled with it in her mouth. Charles pouted; then, seeing Christine smile, he started to laugh too.
There was a breadcrumb on the side of