Vanora Bennett - Blood Royal

Watching the French faces cringe, Owain realised that this unpleasant young man must be one of the Princess’s older brothers, a prince of France, and that he’d come to this room deliberately to pick a fight with the English delegation. The shame and embarrassment that swept over Owain now, on behalf of his master and of England, was of an altogether different magnitude to what he’d felt on his own account a moment before. He could hardly breathe.

Thomas of Clarence crossed himself briskly. ‘Late lamented,’ he agreed in a peaceable mutter, without letting his eyes meet those of his challenger. Owain could see he wasn’t going to get himself embroiled in that discussion. The Duke was a man who picked his fights carefully and this wasn’t a good fight for any English ambassador. Richard II had been deposed by a cousin after his French marriage nearly twenty years before; and Richard’s wife Isabelle, this Princess’s eldest sister, sent weeping and humiliated back to France. The new King, Henry of Lancaster, had tried to keep her in England: he’d wanted to remarry Isabelle to his own eldest son, the man who now reigned as King Henry V of England. But Isabelle had been proud enough to refuse. So Henry IV had let her go, but kept her dowry and jewels. They’d probably been spent on funding the English armies now skirmishing around Normandy. The French still thought of the new Lancastrian kings of England as usurpers. And they’d never forgiven the insult to their Princess.

The young Frenchman in blue stared at the English Duke, as if willing him to rise to the bait. Then, when he got no response, he went on, very deliberately and insultingly, ‘The late lamented King Richard II of England, who died by God knows whose orders.’

The silence deepened. No one did know how the deposed English King had died. The Duke of Clarence let his eyes rise to those of the French Prince. The Frenchman let a taunting half-smile flicker on his thin face. Everyone in the room seemed to stop breathing. The Duke’s face went red. He’d clearly forgotten all about being diplomatic with the French. He just wanted to hit the sneering Frenchman. With muscles tightening everywhere, he took a threatening step forward.

Owain flinched and looked down.

But, even while staring fixedly at his knees and the forgotten casket he was hugging, he was aware of the Princess just next to him. Now, unexpectedly, he felt her move into the middle of the fray.

Hardly seeming to know what she was doing, the Princess grabbed the Duke’s swinging arm, then swiftly turned that movement into a trusting gesture, putting his muscly limb with its clenched fist through her thin green-covered arm, and turning him gently but firmly away from the doorway and back towards the French Queen.

The Duke looked at her in dull surprise, but he let himself be turned. The Princess said, very quickly, in a voice so tense with suppressed panic that it somehow came out gay and flirtatious, ‘Sir, if it please God and my lord father and my lady mother, I will very willingly be your mistress and the Queen of England.’

Owain looked up, impressed by the Princess’s bravery. She’d brought the Duke right back to the French Queen’s feet. Looking to her mother for approval, and getting a brief nod, she went on, in a less formal way, with the beginning of laughter that might have been caused by relief in her throat, ‘After all, I’ve always been told I’d be a great lady one day.’

The Duke seemed to be adjusting only slowly to the change in tempo. He looked from the Princess to her mother. He glanced over to the doorway, where the Princess’s older brother, if that was who the insulting Frenchman was, was also staring open-mouthed at the girl. Then, very slowly, his head began to nod. Up, down, up, down. He was still thinking. It seemed hours before his mouth opened and a great choking guffaw of a laugh came out.

He didn’t laugh alone for more than a second. The whole hall filled with a wolf-pack’s howling; mirth and the release of fear mixed. The French Queen was cackling so hard her whole body was wobbling with it. She was so pleased with the way things were turning out that she didn’t even notice her pet squirrel grab the sweetmeat on her golden saucer and start chewing at it, sitting on its hind legs, watching the spectacle with bright round eyes. And all the French officials were giving their Princess soft, thankful looks as they snuffled into their hands.

It was the first time she had really understood what it meant to be Princess Catherine de Valois: that people would listen. It was the first time she had ever exercised any sort of power. It was the most exciting thing she’d ever done. Her heart was racing. There was blood drumming a tattoo in her ears.

Ignoring the baleful look her eldest brother Louis was giving her from the doorway, and the baleful look her mother was giving Louis from her carved chair – there’d be trouble between the two of them soon enough – Catherine breathed in deeply and let herself enjoy the laughter that meant her words had saved the day.

Then she looked down. The poor English page was still kneeling there, holding that casket. The English Duke had forgotten all about him. The handsome boy with blue eyes and floppy dark hair was gazing at her with the same soft, adoring look everyone was giving her now, but he was obviously also longing to get up off his knees and rush back off to the shadows. But she could do anything today. She could cut his agony short; she could save him too.

‘Is this for me?’ she said, touching the Duke’s arm and indicating the casket with a nod. ‘How beautiful …’ and she bent her neck for the Duke to lower the jewel over her head. Startled, but still chuckling, the Duke reached out for the necklet, murmured, ‘Thank you, Owain,’ and leaned over her to do his courtly duty. She was aware of the English page with the name that wasn’t English at all scrambling to his feet and moving quickly away, free at last now his master had dismissed him. She could imagine the ache in his knees; she hoped he was grateful.

Then she concentrated on the English Duke’s thick, corded neck and the giant fingers fumbling over the chased gold at her throat. Thomas of Clarence was rather like a bull with a ring through his nose, she thought, a little smugly: dangerously strong, but quite easy to steer once you had a hold of the ring. Would his brother, the King of England – now, just possibly, her future husband – be as amenable? She hoped so. But she also found herself hoping Henry of England wouldn’t have that thick neck and pop eyes and grizzling temple, and that he wouldn’t wear the muddy, dull greens and browns that these Englishmen were all covered in. Letting her mind flit off to a future in which an archbishop put the crown of England on her head, in a blaze of candlelight and jewels, the husband her imagination sketched in was as young as she was. He was tall and slender and lithe; with dark blue eyes and floppy black hair and a shy, adoring smile.

The ducal fumbling seemed to take a very long time.

The first time she glanced up, she saw her little brother Charles, looking very pale and much younger than his twelve years, stumbling out of the hall past Louis and into the corridor, where she could just see Christine de Pizan beckoning to him from the shadows. She hoped that meant Charles was going to be fed. Neither of the royal children had been fed all day. She was suddenly achingly hungry herself now she remembered how long it was since she’d last eaten. But Christine was as loyal and busy as a terrier, and good at gingering up the sullen, scary servants into making them meals. And perhaps Charles would save some of the food for her for later.

The second time she glanced up, as the Duke muttered ‘There!’ in a kind of thick-fingered triumph, she was relieved to see Louis had vanished too. There was no one in the doorway but men-at-arms.