Blood Royal. Vanora Bennett
he and Christine slid down to their knees to join the picnic.
Charles led the way to the lion cage. Food had improved his mood. So had the exchange he’d begun as soon as he had an egg inside him and a slice of beef and most of the strawberries.
‘Does the King of England really want to marry Catherine and take her away?’ he’d asked Owain, and his eyes had had both fierceness and a kind of mute plea in them.
‘Yes,’ Owain said kindly, understanding what was making the child look so glum – fear of losing his playmate if she married – and feeling sorry for him.
‘No,’ Christine said at the same time, with much more force. ‘He knows we’ll say no – we already said no to him as a husband for Princess Isabelle, because he’s a …’ Looking at Owain, she refrained from saying ‘usurper’, but only just. ‘In any case, he doesn’t want a marriage. He wants war. He’s already started harping on about English claims to France. He’ll just use any marriage negotiations to pick a quarrel with France. He’s looking for a grievance. It would be naive to think anything else.’
There was a short pause. Owain, feeling shocked that he hadn’t understood how hostile some of the French might feel towards his King and, trying not to resent Christine’s sudden brusque rudeness, looked carefully away. But he saw little Charles nodding, clearly believing Christine. ‘Let’s go to the lions,’ Charles piped up, looking suddenly much more cheerful. He bounded off through the bowers and trellises and artful fountains and sprays of roses.
Owain brought up the rear. The royal gardens were so extraordinary that he quickly forgot the sting of Christine’s tongue and was soon turning his head from side to side, admiring statues; views; flowers; nightingale cages; fountains gleaming with silver fishes. Miracles.
Everyone stopped when they got to the great wrought-iron cage. Inside, a matted, maddened lion paced, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, over its droppings, snarling. It was menace in animal form. It was golden; it was stinking; a king humiliated. It never stopped trying to escape. Even now, in this heat, it was pulling the chain that ran from its collar to the stake in the ground as taut as it could, testing the possibilities, following its instinct, feeling for a way out.
A silence fell on them all as they admired its powerful shoulders and the magnificent lines of its muzzle and its tawny, deadly eyes.
‘Has it ever got out?’ Owain asked, in a dazed voice.
No one answered.
Charles whispered: ‘They feed it a whole dog, or a pig, or a sheep, every day.’ He added, without expression: ‘The animals always scream before they die.’
After a while, Catherine asked, just as quietly: ‘Does the King of England keep lions?’
As she spoke, she glanced up towards Christine, who was standing well back from the cage. She was looking past the lion into the distance; lost in some private thought of her own, which, to judge from the tragic expression on her face, wasn’t a happy one.
Catherine turned her steady gaze back on Owain.
Owain had no idea if there had ever been a lion in England. And his head was too full of lion-stink and heat to be able to think straight. But there was nothing he wanted more than to feel her eyes on him. ‘There’s an elephant at the Tower of London,’ he said. He’d heard the story, even if he hadn’t seen the elephant on his few brief trips to London. And he’d seen a picture of an elephant once. It was the most impressive thing he could think of to say.
‘What’s an elephant like?’ Catherine asked.
‘Huge and grey,’ he said boldly, describing the picture he remembered, beginning to enjoy his story. ‘Like a giant dog. And instead of a nose it has an extra limb – curving up, in the shape of a horn.’
He’d hoped to astonish her with his fabulous beast. But she just nodded, matter-of-factly, as if she saw elephants every day. Perhaps being among miracles at all times took away the edge of shock.
Then, after another furtive glance at Christine, she added in a whisper: ‘And what’s Henry of England like?’
She moved a little closer.
Owain paused, trying desperately to marshal his thoughts. She smelled of roses.
‘Honest,’ he muttered, thinking defiantly that he could at least do something to right the damningly wrong impression Christine had given of his King. ‘Straightforward. Good-tempered … A good planner … And an excellent master: everyone who serves him loves him …’
He glanced up at Christine himself, hoping she was still staring past the lions, thinking her thoughts and not listening to him.
Catherine was so close now that she couldn’t help but catch the movement of his eyes and know what he was thinking. She bit her lip; but the breathless beginning of a giggle escaped anyway. She nodded conspiratorially at him. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, ‘Christine’s not listening.’
For a moment they stood too close, exchanging glances, not quite laughing. He was dizzy with the intimacy of it; dizzy with the bees buzzing around him. Then she went back to prompting him: ‘And the court, the English court? What’s that like?’
Owain hardly knew anything of the court, either. He’d served at banquets – three hours of silent eating. He’d ridden behind hunts. But he didn’t know if any of that would impress her, any more than the elephant had. He let the smell of roses and warm skin drift delightfully into his nostrils. He hesitated. He wanted to make England attractive. But he wanted to tell her the truth, too.
Hesitantly, he began: ‘Not as magnificent as this … and London isn’t a quarter the size of Paris.’ His head cleared. Suddenly he knew what might appeal to someone brought up in times as uncertain as those Catherine had known here – times, he thought, with sudden understanding, that had perhaps been almost as uncertain as those he’d known, in a different way. He’d tell her what had appealed to him about coming to England – it had been exactly the same thing. He went on, with greater confidence: ‘But it’s very orderly. Dignified. Decorous. Calm. The King and his brothers and his three Beaufort uncles rule together, wisely and in perfect unison … and the people love them all.’
She was nodding now; looking thoughtful; wistful even. He’d been right. She was impressed by that.
Louder, because it would be foolhardy to expect Christine not to come out of her reverie sooner or later, and seriously, because he wanted the pleasure of watching Catherine’s lips move and eyes dance and neck sway as she considered her reply, he asked: ‘And what about here? The French court … what’s that like?’
She thought. Her forehead wrinkled enchantingly.
But it was Charles who, turning away from the lion at last, broke in with an answer. ‘Dancing and debauchery!’ he shouted, throwing out both arms as if taunting a mob.
Catherine laughed, a little uneasily. ‘He doesn’t know what it means,’ she told Owain. ‘It’s just something they were shouting in the street … last year … when there was …’ Then, as Owain’s startled look sank in, she turned crossly to her little brother and reprimanded him: ‘You mustn’t say that! I’ve told you so many times!’
‘I do know what it means. There was a ball here once when four men dressed up as hairy savages,’ Charles piped up stubbornly. ‘They were supposed to jump out and scare the ladies. But their costumes caught fire on a torch, and two of them burned to death before everyone’s eyes,’ he added with ghoulish relish. ‘You can imagine the screaming.’
‘Did that really happen?’ Owain couldn’t help asking. You never knew, here. Perhaps it had. ‘Were you there?’
With something like regret, the little voice replied: ‘No … before I was born.’ And the pinched, freckled boy’s face clouded.
Catherine said: ‘But I went to the Court of Love once … my uncle’s idea … the Duke