Blood Royal. Vanora Bennett
had come upon the family.
When the two young men had gone, a few minutes later, dark Jean taking the mule Christine had had from the palace last night, Christine said: ‘Jean’s working with the other Jean at the chancellery. It’s important for us all that it goes well. Luckily Jean’s friend’s father is Henri de Marle …’ She paused and looked at Owain, who only looked bewildered. ‘The Chancellor of France now,’ she explained, with none of last night’s softness, just haughty astonishment that anyone could fail to know something so vital, ‘since the Duke of Burgundy left Paris; he was president of the Parliament before. A good connection …’
She bustled around, picking things up; preparing for the day; not looking at him. She was putting things in a basket. When Owain plucked up courage to speak again, she took a moment to turn round in the direction of his voice, as if she didn’t really want him there. ‘My Duke is busy with your Queen today,’ he ventured; ‘a hunting expedition. I’m not needed.’ He sensed, from the hard line of her back, that she didn’t want to be reminded that he was the servant of an English duke. ‘So perhaps … I could … go with you, if you’re going into Paris?’ he finished, in a breathless hurry. He was longing to see the city; but he was a little scared of venturing out alone.
She said briskly, ‘I’ll be busy here for a while.’ She didn’t meet his eye. Perhaps she was regretting the warmth of their conversation last night, he thought. She didn’t like the English, and even if he wasn’t really an Englishman, and knew he’d never be considered as one back home, he could see that, in her mind, he might still count as one. For a moment, he felt disconsolate.
But only for a moment.
Then the memory of the books came back to him. Brightly, Owain asked her if he could spend his free day reading one of her books, if she would choose him one; and then she did turn and reward him with a smile of surprising depth and intimacy. ‘You really want to learn something, then,’ she murmured, in her magnificent throaty rumble; nodding as if she were surprised and impressed. He glowed. He wanted to impress her; he could sense she knew many things he’d be interested to find out.
She didn’t say any more. She just led him back to the scriptorium where he’d slept, looking approvingly at the way he’d tidied his things into a corner so as not to be in the way. She hesitated over the books on the bookshelf for a few moments, picking at first one, then another. Finally her hand pulled one out. She set it up on a lectern and left in silence.
Owain read.
He’d expected it to be hard. He’d expected to be out of his depth. But the story she’d chosen was a very simple one. It was the story of her life. It was like nothing he’d ever read or heard before. Even the poems and stories he remembered from long ago, before England, back there – the legends, the tales of ancient kings, the songs of praise – weren’t so shockingly personal. Before he knew what had happened, he’d been swept off into another time and place, lost, for the first time, between the covers of a book, experiencing the love that had once been in the newlywed Christine’s heart.
The first night of our marriage, I could already feel
His great goodness, for he never did to me
Any outrage which would have harmed me,
But, before it was time to get up,
He kissed me, I think, one hundred times,
Without asking for any other base reward:
Indeed the sweet heart loves me well.
Prince, he makes me mad for love,
When he says that he is all mine;
He will make me die of sweetness;
Indeed the sweet heart loves me well.
Owain turned the page, realising only now, with a sudden sickness in his heart, that he already knew that Christine had been widowed young. This story wouldn’t end well.
‘My husband was the head of the household then: he was a young, wise and sensible gentleman, well-liked by princes and all those who used to work with him as King’s Secretary, a profession that enabled him to sustain his family. But already Fortune had consigned me to its wheel, preparing to confront me with adversity and knock me down. It did not want me to enjoy the goodness of my husband and killed him in the prime of his life. It took him from me in his prime youth, when he was thirty-four and I twenty-five. I was left in charge of two small children and a big household. Of course, I was full of bitterness, missing his sweet company and my past happiness, which had lasted no more than ten years. Aware of the tribulations that would face me, wanting to die rather than to live, remembering also that I had promised him my faith and love, I decided I would not remarry. And so I fell into the valley of tribulation.’
Owain flicked forward.
‘I could not exactly know the situation regarding his income. For the usual conduct of husbands is not to communicate and explain their revenues to their wives, an attitude that often brings troubles, as my experience proves. Such behaviour does not make sense when the wives are not stupid but sensible and behaving wisely … I had been so used to enjoying an easy life, and now I had to steer the boat that had been left in the storm without a captain. Problems sprang at me from everywhere; lawsuits and trials surrounded me as if this were the natural fate of widows. Those who owed me money attacked me so that I would not dare ask anything about it. Soon I was prevented from receiving my husband’s inheritance, which was placed in the King’s hands … The leech of Fortune did not stop sucking my blood for fourteen years, so that if one misfortune ceased, another ordeal happened, in so many different ways that it would be too long and too tedious to tell even half of it. It did not stop sucking my blood until I had nothing left.’
Owain jumped. It took him a second to remember where he was. He was in the scriptorium. It must be midday. The sun was brilliant through the square of the window. And Christine was somewhere behind, moving very quietly so as not to disturb him.
He turned round to her; ducked his head in the beginnings of a polite bow. There was something strange now about looking at her; she was as fiercely self-possessed as ever, and three times his age, but he knew so many intimate things about her … He’d felt her love as if it were his own … and he was in pain for her past grief … and he thought he understood why, after all those troubles brought on by her widow’s weak helplessness, she’d be quick to attack now if she ever felt belittled. It explained even her sharpness, at moments, with him.
Perhaps she saw. She was nodding to herself; she looked warmer than she had in the morning. She didn’t acknowledge the traces of tears on his cheeks. But she did nod her head down at the basket on her arm.
‘I’m going to run my errands now,’ she said; and suddenly she smiled that brilliant smile. ‘Would you like to come into Paris with me?’
Christine hated the Butchery. There was no alternative but to pass Saint-Jacques of the Butchery Church on the Right Bank, on the way to the Island that was still the heart of Paris: they had to walk by that great show-off church building that the rich bully-boys had spared no expense on, making its stained-glass windows glow and its saints glitter with gold. But at least she needn’t tell Owain any more about the butchers, and what they’d done last year, she thought, averting her gaze. He knew enough. The streets of the Butchery were strangely quiet these days: the calves and cows, lowing uneasily, still came here to be slaughtered from Cow Island, their flat last pasture in mid-river, and the tanners still hung skins on ropes from side to side of their street to cure them, like great stinking brown sheets, but now that the butchers weren’t allowed to sell on their home territory any more, the district had lost its old swagger and bustle and arrogance. When Owain asked, ‘Why is that church chained up?’ she only pursed her lips and pretended not to hear. He asked again. With all the old rage coming back at the oafs she could suddenly remember, yelling their slogans and thrusting their torches priapically through the smoke and darkness,