My mind ranged over the times when I had been an encumbrance or, even worse, a person of no real importance to him. No, he had not been cruel, I admitted with painful honesty, he simply had not seen the need to consider me as part of his life. I had never been part of his life. It had been John who had sent me the portrait, James who had kept me company during the sieges of my honeymoon and played Henry’s harp with me.
What need to tell his wife of any change of plan? Why tell her that his brother was dead in battle? And as soon as my body had co-operated with the promise of a child, he had abandoned me for the demands of the battlefield. Oh, I knew his commitment to England had been strong, and had he not had a God-anointed duty to his country as King? But did he have to leave me for a year of our young marriage?
And I, not guiltless in this, had been too immature to forge a relationship with him. I had been obedient and subservient, I had never forced him to notice me as Katherine because I had not known how. I had never dared call him Hal, as his brothers had. And now all my chances to build a loving marriage with Henry were destroyed.
Perhaps there had never been any real chances.
A howl was rent from me, hot with fury and grief. I swept my lute from coffer to floor, the strings twanging in complaint. I dragged the curtains of the bed closed. He would never lie there again with me.
How could this be? How could I have fooled myself for so long? His family, his captains, his confessor all summoned to his bedside. But not me.
And at last true horror laid its vicious hand on me, and the degradation, for I had not been ousted from his affections by another woman, or even by another man. Or even by a cold and distant duty laid down by God. War and conquest and English glory had proved to be a demanding mistress, against whose enchantment I had never been able to compete. At last I sat and wept, my infatuation for Henry as dead as his earthly remains, my body an empty shell.
Saddest of all, Henry had never even set eyes on the son he had so desired.
All the structure of my life lay in pieces, the pattern of my life as Henry’s wife and Queen of England.
What was expected of me now?
‘Do I go to him at Vincennes?’ I asked John next morning. Surely I could make this decision for myself. Of course I would go. As my last office to him as his wife, I would kneel beside his coffin and pray for his departed soul.
‘No,’ John replied. ‘They will have already begun the journey back to England. I advise you to make your way to Rouen.’ I had found him in the entrance hall, already dressed to leave, shrugging into a heavy jerkin, pulling on his gauntlets, outside in the courtyard, his horses and entourage already drawn up. ‘I’ll leave James here. He’ll escort you when you’re ready.’
So I would go to Rouen. The customary flutter of apprehension that attacked me when all was not clear was beating against my temples, warning me of imminent pain. I realised that I had not even asked John what provision had been made for me on my return to England. I had no idea what would be expected of me there.
‘What will I do?’ I asked Isabeau in despair. My mother was already making her way towards the chapel for her daily petitioning of the Almighty, but she turned and considered, head tilted, a little smile on her mouth.
‘Do you not know? You are more important now, Katherine, than you ever were before the English King’s death. Are you not the living, breathing symbol of all that was agreed between Henry and your father?’ She sneered. ‘They’ll put you on a pedestal, place a halo around your head and clothe you in cloth of gold. Glorious motherhood personified.’
Her brutal cynicism horrified me. ‘I can’t…’
‘Of course you can.’ A sour twist of her mouth, wrecking the smile, coated Isabeau’s words in disdain. ‘What is your alternative? Better that than to be driven to return here to France, to live out your days in penury in company with a bitter, aging woman and a witless man.’
It shook me into a terrible reality I could not envisage.
As advised—or instructed—by Lord John, and accompanied by a silent James, for once robbed of all his high spirits, I travelled to Rouen. I was there, in the position prepared for me at the door of the great cathedral, when the remains of King Henry of England arrived.
I watched the scene unfold, all in sharp detail but as if at a great distance from me. The vast doors had been opened wide to receive the procession. It was truly magnificent: a mighty host of mourners. If I had not realised before the honour in which Henry of Lancaster was held in Normandy, I did now. Bells tolled, clergy chanted, while beneath it all simmered a dark and doleful sense of doom as a carriage drawn by four burnished black horses came to a halt.
