Blood Royal. Vanora Bennett
he said, retreating fully from his moment of touchy self-assertion; putting the others at their ease. ‘King Henry now. So I suppose I’m nearly English, after all.’ He met their eyes boldly. ‘I was lucky,’ he added with another of those deliberate light smiles, as if daring them to disagree.
Saying that so confidently gave Owain the usual dizzy feeling of being in two places at once. As he smiled for his hosts, he couldn’t help also thinking, privately, for a flash, of what might have become of him if he hadn’t become English. He thought of the cousins he’d played and ridden and hidden with, who’d been kept by their father to stand or fight with the Welsh armies, who were all now prisoners in the Tower of London: Glynd?r’s oldest son Gruffydd, twenty or so, with his father’s light eyes and quick wit, who could cut a raindrop in two with his sword, the fastest runner Owain had ever seen, the fastest rider too. Owain’s childhood hero. The three little blonde Mortimer girls, lisping and giggling, none of them older than eight or nine, with their tired-eyed mother, Catrin, Glynd?r’s daughter and Owain’s aunt. The women had all been taken captive when Catrin’s husband, the powerful Englishman Edmund Mortimer, had been killed at the siege of Harlech, when the English King’s men had finally broken down the walls. Not everyone he’d grown up with was a prisoner now; not quite. Owain thought of Glynd?r’s younger son, Maredudd ap Owain Glynd?r, hiding with his fugitive father in Herefordshire – laughing quietly over their place of refuge – with one of Glynd?r’s English son-in-laws, paradoxically the English Sheriff of the County, still very much on the run. He thought of his own immediate family: his mother long dead, they said of shock and fear after hiding from Prince Harry’s raiding party come to burn down Sycharth Castle. He couldn’t remember her. His father, a joyous smile or a giant puff of rage, depending on his mood; riding out with the French and taking Owain with them; teaching Owain a first few words of the incomers’ ways and language when he was only five or six and prouder than any boy had ever been to be taken on the army’s marches. Even if Owain no longer respected that reckless father – who’d handed him over to the enemy when it suited him – or the uncles who’d saved their skins by handing over their own men to be tortured and killed, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for them all. His father, Maredudd ap Tudur, like all the other surviving brothers, was living on nothing now: on the run, lodging in attics and churches, surviving on pity. The houses had gone. Owain remembered two of the moated manors burning; a confused child’s recollection of peering out between fingers clamped over eyes, choking on smoke; being hushed into tickly, terrified silence. They’d been somewhere among the smooth stretches of grey-green turf and tree and sea on the island some knew as the Dark Island, or Honey Island, or the Island of the Brave, which had once been his family’s home: Môn, beyond the great snowy mountains of Gwynedd, which the English called Anglesey, and which he would never see again. Uncle Rhys’ head was on a pole at Chester. Uncle Rhys’ boys were not allowed back to Erddreiniog. Uncle Gwilym had lost Clorach; Uncle Ednyfed’s children had lost Trecastell. Only Morfydd, his bravest cousin, Uncle Goronwy’s daughter, who had charm and more determination than every other member of his family put together, and, what was more, was blessed with a husband not quite so out of favour as the rest of Owain’s family, still dared to petition the King of England to get the family lordship of Penmynydd back.
In his mind’s eye, Owain saw the thousand children taken as servants when the English King had stabled his horses in the church of Strata Florida Abbey, letting them foul God’s altar. That older Henry had been a cruel man. He’d enjoyed demonstrating that he feared no one, not even God. If it hadn’t been for young King Henry, with his pardons and his peace … Owain heard the anguished howling of the mothers that night; the fearful quiet of the children, their lost stares, driven off like sheep into the abbey and on into the unknown. That had been the beginning. Owain saw the end too: grass in the streets; roofless houses; burned-out villages; a land without men.
‘I was lucky,’ he repeated lightly. ‘My King Henry is a good master.’
Christine and Jean exchanged glances. Then, putting an arm on the boy’s shoulder, Jean led him inside.
They gave the boy a drink and a bite to eat. He said politely that he couldn’t take a thing, but of course in the event he wolfed down slice after slice of meat and bread, and washed it all down with a big cup of wine. He was young, after all, whatever he’d seen in that remote war; fifteen, maybe; and he had a healthy appetite.
Seeing them all standing around the circle of light, watching him – not just Christine and Jean, but Jean’s wife Jehanette and little Jacquot and Perrette – he watered his wine liberally, and explained, through a cheerful mouthful, ‘We’re under orders not to drink French wine without water, because it’s so good and strong; we’re not allowed to get drunk.’ He hesitated; they could all see him wondering whether to tell them the reasoning behind the order too – too obviously ‘Don’t get drunk in case a Frenchman ambushes you’ – then realising that would be tactless, and blushing. Instead, he ran an appreciative tongue round his mouth, which was stained dark red. ‘I don’t know yet if it’s strong, but it certainly is good,’ he finished, giving them all a beaming smile. Christine saw Perrette’s snub nose wrinkle in the beginning of a return laugh; warningly, she caught Perrette’s eye. There was no point in being too easily charmed.
As soon as he’d satisfied his appetite for food, the boy sighed, pushed his stool back from the table, and, in the biddable fashion of a well-bred child, set to trying to entertain his silent hosts with stories from his day and his life. Eagerly, he started talking – gabbling, Christine thought severely – about the audience his Duke had had with the Queen of France – well, not his Duke, exactly; Owain had just been seconded to Clarence for the trip to Paris. He fixed his eyes rather pleadingly on dimpling, curly-haired Jehanette, who looked the readiest to smile. ‘My master sent your Princess a jewel with the marriage proposal. It was my duty and pleasure to hand it to her today … I think your Princess liked it. She’s a very beautiful princess. A jewel herself. The marriage will be a blessing for both our lands … don’t you think?’ he finished, and even he could hear the imploring note in his own voice.
He had no idea why they were looking so cheerless. Even the pretty wife. He sensed he must have said the wrong thing – but what? Did he smell? He restrained the impulse to sniff at his armpits.
But he watched in dawning alarm as the elderly woman who’d brought him home pursed her lips and drew her back up very straight. She’d been beautiful once, this Christine de Pizan, you could see that; there was still the ghost of beauty in her ravaged face and in the pride with which she carried her small, tough body, prodding out her barrel chest, half pugnacious, half flirtatious. But there was something frightening about her too; he certainly didn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.
Christine glared at him. She said severely: ‘I’m not so sure about that, young man. And I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much, if I were you. I doubt very much whether this marriage will happen.’
She dropped her chin and went on gazing implacably at him.
Owain shrank into himself, wishing himself invisible, wondering how he could have given such offence.
He noticed the younger Frenchman quietly putting a restraining hand on his mother’s arm. He also saw Madame de Pizan didn’t seem to care. The gesture almost seemed to goad her into going on.
‘No doubt your English … king … wants a marriage with the oldest and greatest royal line in Europe,’ she said, and her husky voice vibrated deeper with contempt. ‘But one of our royal princesses has already turned down a proposal of marriage by your King, don’t forget. As I recall, there was a question of the validity of his claim to the throne, at the time … and I’m not aware of anything having changed in that regard since then.’ She pushed her head a little closer to his. ‘Are you?’
Owain felt like a rabbit being hypnotised by a snake. ‘Ye—no …’ he stammered, desperate to please but sensing he was being lured into danger too; and, mostly, simply not knowing what answer was expected.
‘In any event, it’s our King who will decide, when he recovers from his … his illness,’ Christine was sweeping superbly on, overemphasising her words and raising