Joanna Hickson - The Agincourt Bride

The candles had burned down several inches when a noise like birds twittering roused me from my sentinel stool. It was the high-pitched chatter of excited young ladies drifting up the stair and I swiftly retreated to my previous hiding place. Catherine’s retinue had obviously expanded and fortunately, as they tripped into the bedchamber, they left the door open, so I was able to hear Bonne of Armagnac’s authoritative voice begin allocating various tasks concerning Catherine’s toilette.

‘With your permission, Mademoiselle, Marie and Jeanne will help you to undress whilst I secure your robes and jewels …’

Catherine’s voice broke in, low and sweet but firm enough to silence her attendant. ‘No, Mademoiselle Bonne. You do not have my permission. What I would like you to do is call Guillaumette. She is the one I need to help me.’

‘Do you mean your tiring-woman, Mademoiselle?’ Bonne protested. ‘A menial cannot be trusted to handle your highness’ court dress or safeguard your jewels! That is a task for someone of rank.’

I smiled at the steely determination audible behind Catherine’s deceptively mild reply. ‘Mette is not “a menial”, as you put it, she is my nurse. When I was a child she was trusted with my life. I’m sure she can be trusted now with a few rags and baubles. Summon Guillaumette if you please.’

I heard my name called from the doorway and waited a timely minute before responding. Meanwhile Catherine was gently attempting to mollify her affronted lady-in-waiting. ‘You are older and wiser than I, Mademoiselle Bonne, but I suspect that even you have a nurse who cared for you in childhood and who knows all your little ways …’

‘Well, yes,’ Bonne of Armagnac admitted reluctantly, ‘but I thought …’ Her voice trailed away uncertainly.

‘… that mine would have long gone?’ Catherine suggested gently. ‘But you see my faithful Mette has not gone. She is here …’ As indeed I was, entering the salon exactly on cue and dropping humbly to my knee inside the door, head bowed to deflect the angry glare of Mademoiselle Bonne. ‘… and I have decided that she and she alone will have full charge in my bedchamber.’

I had to pinch myself to remember that she was not yet fourteen. I sent up a silent prayer of thanks to St Catherine, for it was surely she who had inspired this combination of sweetness and obstinacy in her namesake.

Peeping under the edge of my coif I watched Catherine stifle a yawn and say wearily to the assembled bevy of young ladies, ‘I am very tired. There will be much to do tomorrow. The queen seems to have commissioned half the master-craftsmen in Paris to fit me out for court life and I shall need all your advice on the latest fashions. So now I will bid you goodnight and I know you will show kindness and assistance to my friend Agnes de Blagny who, as you know, will be one of your number.’

I felt quite sorry for the timorous Agnes as she was carried off by four court damsels who obviously found the prospect of a day spent picking clothes and jewels so enchanting that their excited chatter died only gradually away down the stair. Bonne of Armagnac remained behind however, sidling up to Catherine and dropping her voice to a confidential murmur. I tactfully retired to the hearth to re-heat the curdled posset, but I have sharp ears and easily caught the gist of her speech.

‘Coming from the convent, Mademoiselle, you will need more than just advice on jewels and fashions. The ways of the court are complex. It is easy to make mistakes. The queen trusts me to help and guide you, just as my father helps and guides the dauphin.’

‘No doubt she does.’ There was a pause as Catherine gazed steadily at Bonne before continuing with the kind of regal assurance that I now believe cannot be taught. ‘And you may be sure that I will be as grateful to you as the dauphin is to your father, Mademoiselle. But I must remind you that the queen made an announcement at court tonight which you seem to have forgotten. As the only remaining unmarried daughter of the king, I am to have the courtesy title of Madame of France. I feel certain that you of all people will not want to continue making an error of protocol by addressing me as Mademoiselle. Now I wish you a very good night – and please leave the key to the strong-box.’

It was only later I learned that the key in question was tantamount to Bonne’s badge of office. It hung from her belt on a jewelled chatelaine and for a moment I thought she was going to refuse to hand it over. Then she unhooked it abruptly and dropped it on the table beside Catherine.

‘As you wish, princesse. Good night.’

‘Good night, Mademoiselle Bonne,’ replied Catherine, her painted court face unsmiling beneath the ornate headdress.

The Count of Armagnac’s daughter made one of her precise courtesies and stalked out, casting a baleful glance at me and leaving the door deliberately open. As I obeyed Catherine’s mute signal to close it, I heard the lady’s footsteps halt at the curve of the stairs and guessed that she had paused in the hope of catching some of our conversation. With a grim little smile I ensured that the only sound that carried to her ears was the firm thud of wood on wood.

‘Am I to address you as Madame then, Mademoiselle?’ I asked Catherine, confusing myself.

To my delight she giggled again. ‘Well, you certainly do not need to address me as both, Mette!’ she exclaimed. After a moment, she said, ‘I think I would rather you stuck to Mademoiselle. I seem to remember that when you called me a little Madame you were usually cross with me.’

‘I am sure I was never cross with you, Madamoiselle,’ I assured her. ‘You were always a good child, and you are scarcely more than a child still.’

She raised a quizzical eyebrow at me.

‘You may not know, Mademoiselle,’ I said, crossing to the hearth to pour the warm posset into a silver hanap, ‘that while you were away there was much political upheaval and at one time the Duke of Burgundy ordered a number of the queen’s ladies to be imprisoned in the Châtelet. Mademoiselle of Armagnac was among them. It is said that their gaolers abused them and I know that they were mauled and mocked by the mob on the way there. She can have no love for commoners like me.’

Catherine gazed at me steadily for several moments before responding. ‘See how useful you are to me already, Mette,’ she remarked. ‘Who else would have told me that?’

I placed the hanap on the table beside her and began removing the pins that fastened her heavy headdress.

As I lifted away the headdress, she briefly massaged an angry red weal where the circlet had dug into her brow, then she cupped her hands around the hanap and took a sip. ‘Now I will tell you something that you may not know, Mette. Mademoiselle Bonne has recently become betrothed to the Duke of Orleans, he who was supposed to marry Michele but ended up marrying our older sister Isabelle. I went to their wedding when I was five but unfortunately she died two years later in childbirth. I prayed for her soul, but I did not weep because, as you know, I hardly knew her. The queen was at pains to tell me all about Bonne’s betrothal this evening. Apparently Louis does not allow his wife Marguerite to come to court because he hates her for being the Duke of Burgundy’s daughter, so when Bonne marries Charles of Orleans, she will be third in order of precedence after the queen and myself.’