Anne O'Brien - The Forbidden Queen

Surprisingly to me, his physique was slender rather than muscular—I had expected a more robust man for so famous a soldier—but I decided there might be hidden strength in the tapering fingers that were clenched around his sword belt. Did he not have a reputation for knightly skills and personal bravery? And also for exceptional manners, but not at this moment, for the hazel gaze, as bright as a tourmaline, returned and fixed once more on my face. He did not make me feel welcome to this meeting of high diplomacy where my future would be decided. He was assessing me as he might have assessed the merits of a mare for sale.

In that moment it seemed to me that his appraisal and manner were quite as careless of my person and my predicament as Great-Aunt Marie’s.

A little frisson of awareness touched my nape. This was a man with a high reputation, a man who could grind us into dust if he so desired. I must play my part and make an impression as a princess of Valois, even though a breath of fear flirted along the skin of my forearms like summer lightning.

Willing courage into my bones, I locked my eyes with his even as my knees trembled at my presumption, until Duke John cleared his throat, like an order given to commence battle. The two English lords abandoned their deliberations, while Henry turned full face—and Isabeau stiffened at my side. I wondered why, noting the direction of her interest, and that her finely plucked brows had drawn down into the closest she would dare come to a diplomatic scowl.

I followed her stare, curious, and understood. My mother was rigid with fury, not because of the ostentatious wealth of the rubies, as large as pigeon’s eggs in the chain resting on King Henry’s breast and the opulence of the trio of similar stones, blinding in the sun, which he wore on the fingers of his right hand. Not even because of the golden lions of England that sprang from two of the quarters on his heavily embroidered thigh-length tunic, although they were heraldically threatening enough. It was the fleurs-de-lys of France, silver on blue, a mirror image of our own livery, that occupied the two counter-posed quarters on Henry’s impressive chest, shouting to all the world that this man claimed our French Crown as confidently as he claimed his own. He had claimed it before we had even taken our seats to discuss the delicate matter. I had been wrong. He was without doubt here to make an impression after all, but not to win friends, only to ensure that he cowed us into submission before a word had been exchanged.

As I heard Isabeau’s sharp inhalation and saw the barely disguised disdain in her face, I understood that this negotiation might still come to nought. I might still not reach the altar as a bride.

Holy Virgin, let him want me enough to accept a compromise. Let him want me enough to accept my mother’s concessions. Make my mother compliant enough to offer concessions .

The two English lords were approaching.

‘The Duke of Bedford,’ Duke John muttered sourly out of the corner of his mouth. ‘The King’s brother. The other’s the Earl of Warwick—another bloody puissant lord.’

But at least they granted us that belated welcome, speaking in French for our comfort and my unspoken gratitude, for my English was not good beyond commonplace greetings.

Lord John, Duke of Bedford, brother to the magnificent Henry, bowed and introduced us to Henry of England.

‘La reine Isabeau de France. Et sa fille, Mademoiselle Katherine.’

And the Earl of Warwick gestured us forward, his hand hard on the collar of a wolfhound that had taken fierce exception to the presence of the leopard.

‘Bien venue, monsieur, mes dames…’ continued Lord John. ‘Votre presence parmi nous est un honneur.’

A flurry of bowing and curtseying.

‘Bienvenue, Mademoiselle Katherine,’ Lord John encouraged me, smiling with a friendly gleam in his eye, and I found myself smiling back. So this was the Duke of Bedford, whose reputation was almost as formidable as King Henry’s. I liked his fair face and amiable features. I liked it that he had taken the trouble to speak to me and put me at my ease, as much as it was possible, even though my heart continued to gallop.

His brother, the King, took no such trouble. King Henry still did not move, except for a furrow growing between his well-marked brows. So he was frowning at us, and his voice, clear and clipped, cut through the formal greetings.

‘We did not expect you to arrive quite yet.’

And he spoke in English. The frown, I decided, was not for me but for his brother’s kindness. This haughty King intended to speak in English, forcing us to struggle in a language in which not one of us was able to converse equably. He looked us over, chin raised in chilly superiority, while my mother, glorious with a gold crown and jewelled fingers, stiffened even further under the scrutiny. Could my heart beat any harder, without stopping altogether? This was going from bad to worse, and King Henry had yet to exchange one word with me.

‘We understood that you wished to begin negotiations immediately,’ Isabeau replied curtly, in French.

‘Is the King not present with you?’ Henry demanded, in English.

‘His Majesty is indisposed and rests at Pontoise,’ Isabeau responded, in French. ‘His Grace of Burgundy and I will conduct negotiations in His Majesty’s name.’

‘It is my wish to communicate with His French Majesty.’ Henry, in English.

I sighed softly, overwhelmed by despair at the impasse. Was King Henry truly so insufferably arrogant?

The King waited with a shuttered expression. Warwick shuffled, his hand still firmly on the hound’s collar, Bedford studied the floor at his feet, neither one of them venturing into French again. It could not have been made clearer to us that the English King’s word was law. And there we stood, silence stretching out between Henry and Isabeau, until, in the interest of diplomacy, Duke John jettisoned his pride and translated the whole into Latin.

Finally, drawing me forward into his direct line of sight, he added, ‘We wish to present to you, Your Majesty, the lady Katherine.’

And I stepped willingly enough, glowing with female pride, for they had truly slain the fatted calf for me. I had no need to feel shamed by my appearance on that day. I was the one bargaining point we Valois had, and Duke John—not my mother, of course—had decided that I was worth some outlay. More coin than I had ever imagined in my life, the vast sum of three thousand florins, had been spent on my appearance. I prayed I would be worth it as I breathed shallowly, my palm damp with nerves within my cousin’s heavy clasp.

And so, splendid in my fur-edged sleeves at last, I made my first curtsey to Henry of England.

I had a price to pay for my moment of glory. It was all very well to dress me as if I were already Queen of England, but in a hot tent on a sultry day in May, I was as heated as if I were labouring in the royal kitchens.

The heart-shaped headdress that confined all my hair sat heavily on my brow like a boiled pudding, the short veiling clinging damply to my neck. The folds of the houppelande, quite beautiful and as blue as the Virgin’s robe, furred and embroidered and belted beneath my breast with a jewelled girdle, were so heavy that trickles of sweat ran down my spine. But I braced myself against the discomfort.

I suppose I looked well enough, a true princess, as I lifted my skirts a little way with my free hand to exhibit the pleated under-tunic of cloth of gold. All very fine—except that it was all outward show. My linen shift was old and darned and rough against my naked flesh. My shoes let in the damp from the dew-laden grass. The florins had not run to new shoes or undergarments, but the King would not notice that beneath my magnificently trailing skirts and jewelled bodice.