Blood Royal Read online

  It was still raining. Water dripped into Charles, Duke of Orleans’ eyes from his helmet. He was running through the October woods, panting like an animal, as wet under his armour as everything in the watery gloom outside. He was running through branches looming out of the fog like outstretched arms, hooking at him, hooking at his sword.

  He couldn’t breathe. He stumbled; stopped; crawled into the doubtful safety of a leafless bush; and lay there, shutting out the world with arms over his head, sobbing in air, feeling the boom of his heart against his breastplate, not listening to the noises behind him.

  He knew what he’d see if he looked back again. A grey-brown writhing hell of dying men, with Englishmen crawling all over them. He knew what he’d feel, too: a grey-brown horror of shame.

  His men would be back there somewhere, still.

  He should have stayed with them.

  All the princes of the blood should have stayed with their men.

  But none of them had. They’d all ignored the Constable’s orders. They’d all left their men. They’d all jostled to the front line in their heavy armour, kicking and whacking and hacking at each other to get a place. They all wanted the glory.

  He’d felt the glory, all right: when the horn had sounded and his horse had surged forward at a furious gallop, thundering over the mud, with its red and gold caparison flying, while he crouched over the pommel, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, ready for combat, ready for death. There’d been glory surging through his veins like alcohol; a red haze in front of his eyes.

  But only for a moment.

  Then his horse had sunk into the mud under him.

  He’d managed to roll free. But it was a long, dazed moment before he’d got shaking to his feet, leaning on his lance. His knee hurt.

  It was only then that he saw the charge was over. All the other horses were down in the mud, too, wherever he looked, hundreds of them, squealing and screaming and flailing their damaged legs. And some of the screams were human.

  With all the mud and drizzle and confusion, and everything so grey and brown, Charles of Orleans hadn’t understood straight away what was happening. Then he’d seen an arrow shaft land squarely in his horse’s chest. Its feathered tip quivered. Pegasus rolled his head and rolled his eyes and died.

  The English weren’t charging. There was death in the air. The death of common men. The sky was full of yeomen’s arrows.

  He’d sheltered behind Pegasus’ warm body disbelievingly, waiting for the danger to pass. Still calm; able, for a moment, to despise the enemy’s failure to engage as the laws of chivalry demanded. It was only when he’d seen the grey and brown ants crawling out of the distant fields and tents and swarming towards him at such speed that, before he knew it, they became thickset English rustics wielding axes and pikes, led by a terrifying glinting war god in glittering armour, and heard the blood-curdling yells of, ‘Henry!’ and ‘St George for merry England!’, that Charles, Duke of Orleans, grandson and great-grandson of kings of France, whose veins coursed with the noble blood of Charlemagne and Brutus, panicked and ran for his life.

  The news of Azincourt spread through France like the bitter autumn wind; the rains battering the windows felt like tears. Ten thousand Frenchmen had died and fifteen hundred been taken prisoner. Among the dead were the King’s commander for the day, the Constable of Albret, and his two brothers, the Duke of Bar and the Duke of Alençon. The young Duke of Orleans, who’d written such lovely poetry in the style of Madame de Pizan, was a prisoner. So was the Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Richemont, the Count of Eu, and Marshal Boucicault. The sound of weeping drifted out of every open window. In just three hours, Paris had become a city of widows. There wasn’t a noble house in France left untouched by the tragedy.

  Even the Duke of Burgundy – who had not volunteered for the King’s army, and who had locked his fifteen-year-old son up to stop him running away to fight – had lost two brothers.

  The city whispered. The people of Paris could sense weakness in their rulers. Even in their grief, the mourners sensed trouble would be coming their way soon.

  TWO

  Catherine was at Mass with her parents when the messenger came.

  There was a scuffle at the door. Then a dozen heads were pushed inside. ‘Sire,’ the voices said. The priest looked up through the incense at the expectant eyes. The King looked away. Catherine could feel how much her father, who was still frail and slow-moving as he convalesced from his bout of illness, didn’t want to be interrupted. ‘Sire,’ the voices said, insistently.

  It was clear to all of them that it must be bad news. Catherine could feel her heart quicken. Catherine’s mother wheezed and heaved herself up. She put a hand out to the King, who was staring at his hands. ‘Afterwards? Surely?’ he said piteously, indicating the priest and the chalice; but she only said impatiently, ‘Come,’ and began tugging at his arm.

  When they told him, he did nothing. It was the Queen who rushed out of the room, with big tears pouring down her face, yelling, ‘Call the council!’ and ‘Send word to Prince Louis to come!’ and ‘Why weren’t we informed earlier?’ and ‘Condolences to the widows! A list of ransoms! Mass at Notre Dame! Full mourning for the court!’ The messenger and the courtiers rushed after her, remonstrating or agreeing or making busy suggestions; a wind of noise and importance. But King Charles just sat, with empty eyes, on his bench.

  Timidly, Catherine reached out her hand and put it on his trembling liver-splodged one. Her head was spinning. She’d danced with Charles of Orleans only last week. He’d told her about his war horse. Pegasus, he’d said easily: the closest thing to a winged horse on this earth. He’d smite the King of England to the ground with his hoofs alone. ‘It’s my dream to bring him down myself in the thick of battle, with a single blow of my sword’. Catherine had admired the ambition. Charles of Orleans had been wearing blue velvet sewn with pearls. Now she was trying to imagine him in chains, being marched through the mud to Calais and roughly embarked on an English ship, but found that her imagination failed her. This couldn’t be real. There must be a mistake.

  Her father twitched his head and said nothing.

  ‘It’s hard to believe,’ Catherine murmured; stroking his papery skin; remembering how just a few years ago her father had lifted her into the tree she could see through the window, roaring with laughter. How strong he’d been then. How young. He seemed like an old man today. He didn’t seem to be listening.

  ‘It will be all right, Father; you mustn’t worry …’ she ventured. He was shocked, she thought. How hard it must be to bear the burden of all this on your own shoulders; how heart-breaking to be a king in times of trouble. ‘We’ll raise the ransoms. We’ll get everyone back. Henry of England isn’t a bad man. He knows the law of war. Even if it takes time …’

  Quietly, her father said: ‘Not Henry of England.’ But it wasn’t really an answer. She had a feeling he was thinking of something quite different. He gave her a knowing look. He grinned. ‘George.’

  ‘George?’

  He grinned again. ‘Me.’

  She stared. Had she misheard? He burst out laughing. Then he looked cunning. Then surprised. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know,’ he said, and winked at her. ‘I am Saint George of England.’

  She didn’t know what to do.

  She didn’t understand what he was saying.

  She just knew she needed help. Father needed help. He wasn’t himself.

  She edged back, looking for a man-at-arms to signal to.

  But before she could catch any eyes of the men in the doorways, her father looked down at the doublet he was wearing, which was decorated with woven fleurs-de-lys.

  She saw the look of terror on his face; a terror so intense she nearly screamed with it. His face contorted. His eyes popped. ‘Spiders! Spiders!’ he yelled, beginning to scrabble at them, getting a grip on one flap of the cloth and ripping it away from his body with hands that weren’t, after all, so frail and old.

  Now men-at-
arms did start to appear, clustering near him, looking alarmed. ‘Spiders! Get them off me!’ he was squealing in horror.

  ‘They’re not spiders, Father,’ she said faintly, but he was down on the ground now, snarling and grabbing the material with his teeth, saliva pouring from his mouth, worrying at the cloth like a dog chasing its tail. ‘They’re French lilies. Your emblem.’

  What she was most aware of, apart from the strange, unreal quality of everything that was happening this morning, was that although the men-at-arms were frightened, they weren’t surprised at the way her father was behaving.

  They were grouping themselves around him; ready to pick him up. They didn’t, though. No one dared touch the King’s person. They were waiting for an order. With a slow buildup of horror, she realised they were waiting for an order from her.

  ‘Filthy French spider lilies!’ she heard as she turned away. She could feel tears welling up inside her. She couldn’t cry. She swallowed. Seeing the captain of the guard’s eyes on her, she nodded. There was nothing else to be done.

  ‘Tell my mother,’ she said, covering her eyes with her hand as if shielding them from the wind. Guardsmen shouldn’t see a princess of the blood royal lose her dignity.

  She must have known, in a part of herself. But understanding it now was like feeling her own fabric being ripped agonisingly apart. No one was surprised except her, because they’d all seen it before. This was what her father’s illness was. He was mad.

  Catherine was still sitting in her mother’s private chapel, what might have been hours or moments later, when Christine found her. Christine had decided to come to her as soon as she’d heard the news of Azincourt. This was no time to remember past bitterness, Christine thought determinedly, rushing to the Hotel Saint-Paul; it was a time for old friends to come together. She’d been missing her visits for months. Catherine would need her.

  The brazier seemed to give no warmth. There was a threat of early snow in the air. Christine was shivering under her furs with the shock of the news from the front; and even from here she could see Catherine shaking.

  ‘My charge needs me,’ she said to the guard who automatically stepped forward to block the way of anyone trying to disturb the Princess’s privacy. She turned tragic eyes on him.

  ‘Seeing as it’s you …’ the guard said, perhaps seeing the red rims of those eyes. He let her through.

  Catherine was on her knees, alone. She was looking at her hands. They were a bloodless, whitish blue. Christine didn’t think she’d been praying.

  She slipped down to her own knees beside the Princess.

  When Christine opened her arms, Catherine let herself sink into them.

  ‘I saw Father …’ Catherine muttered, ‘… start … you know …’

  Christine held her tighter. She hadn’t known that. It took her breath away. She hadn’t thought anything worse could happen today.

  ‘He said he was Saint George of England. He tore the fleurs-de-lys off his own back. Called them spiders.’

  Christine smelled the Queen’s overblown rose oil on the girl’s hair; but she smelled the freshness of youth there too. Catherine should have had so much to hope for. But there was so much to fear as well. How sorry Christine felt for this girl, facing a hardship she couldn’t yet begin to understand. The first of many, maybe.

  ‘They should have told you before,’ she said, and by ‘they’ she meant ‘the Queen’. ‘You’re not a child any more.’

  ‘He’s … mad,’ Catherine said, raising her eyes to Christine; and in those unfocused pupils Christine saw bottomless depths of horror; demons and crawling spiders. ‘Possessed. We’re cursed. All of us. France is cursed.’

  It was so close to what Christine was thinking that she drew in breath. Catherine was being braver than she’d expected – naming her fears. Still, she shook her head.

  Catherine said harshly: ‘But it was you who taught us. The King is the head of the body politic. The nobles its arms and hands. The peasants its legs and feet. You remember?’

  Reluctantly, Christine nodded.

  ‘Well, doesn’t that mean that, if the head goes mad, the country goes mad with him?’

  A pause.

  ‘That’s what’s been happening all this time, isn’t it?’ Catherine said.

  Christine couldn’t bear to agree.

  ‘They’ve always just shut him away,’ Christine said in the end, changing the subject, aware she sounded disjointed but unable to compose herself fully. ‘Whenever this happens. Everyone’s scared to admit he’s gone mad. He used to get violent. He’s not violent any more. I go to him sometimes. There are servants. We know. But he’s afraid; always afraid. He never has anyone he loves with him.’

  ‘What about my mother?’

  Christine shook her head. She knew it was disingenuous not to tell Catherine that whenever the King, in his madness, saw his wife, he attacked her. But years of dislike of everything about the Queen – a dislike she couldn’t discuss with Catherine – stilled her tongue. She let the accusing silence deepen.

  ‘But he loves you,’ she said quietly. ‘If you went to him … if you weren’t afraid … if you listened to the things he’s afraid of … who knows what good that might do? It might help make him whole … it might even help heal him …’

  Catherine drew in breath. She could hear that even Christine, who was suggesting it, thought it a faint hope. She bit her lip. She said, with dread: ‘You mean … me … go to him?’

  Christine nodded.

  ‘When he’s …’ Catherine muttered, looking down. Flexing her fingers.

  Christine drew her closer; put her own hands over those fingers; let Catherine bury her head in her breast. The girl needed comfort; it would help her make her decision. Then, through their shared heartbeats, Christine murmured, with utter certainty, ‘Yes. Now.’

  He was in a white shift. He was in a white room she’d never seen before, with guards outside. Christine stayed behind with them; squeezed Catherine’s arm as they opened the door.

  He was up on the window ledge, with his feet drawn up from the floor, staring out at the white sky.

  ‘I’m parched,’ he said, not looking at her, in a little-boy voice. But when Catherine poured him water from the jug on the table, he ignored it.

  She waited. The voice began again; cunning this time. ‘You won’t fool me. You’re pretending to be my little Catherine. But I know who you really are and what you want. You want to steal my soul. And you’re cruel, cruel … you know how thirsty I am … the thirst of the damned … my soul’s so parched and desperate … you’re just trying to trick me with your water … you know I can’t drink.’

  Catherine sat very still, feeling the stool beneath her. She thought: I have to say something. She said: ‘Why?’

  There was a strange cackle of laughter. ‘Because you’ll steal my soul if I do, of course. Don’t think I don’t know. Let you in once and you’ll take everything; leave me nothing. It’s what you always do. You stole my sword, didn’t you? You, or her, you’re all the same … And now the sun’s gone black and the world is ending you’re going to steal my soul too.’ He stopped. Hummed to himself. Picked with one gnarly hand at his gnarly foot, keeping his head averted from Catherine all the time.

  After a while, she heard his voice again; softer this time; pleading. ‘Don’t look at me, though, will you?’ it said. ‘It’s dangerous to look at someone who’s made of glass. One look goes straight through, you know. Pierces me to the heart. One look and I’ll splinter. You’d smash me to bits if you looked. And you don’t want that, do you?’

  She shook her head, feeling tears on her hand. Then she remembered he wouldn’t see her movement. He wasn’t looking. ‘No,’ she snuffled, wishing, impossibly, that he’d hear her distress and come to; come running over to comfort his little girl; that she’d be lost in his big, embrace, smell the warmth of him and forget all this. ‘No, Papa, I don’t want that.’

  It felt an eternity before Catherine
heard sounds at the door. Christine slipped in; looked alertly round at Catherine, giving her a look glowing with warmth and admiration and compassion. At last, Catherine thought, so wrung out with relief that she loved Christine unconditionally and forgot their past coldness in the warmth of this moment.

  She noticed that Christine didn’t even look at the King of France, clawing up there against the bars of his window with his feet off the ground. But she said, ‘Good morning,’ to him, over her shoulder, in a brisk voice.

  Christine sat with Catherine at the table and put a hand on hers. It was warm. It was blessedly normal. Catherine clung to it. But she kept her face brave.

  ‘Have you been talking?’ Christine said, raising her voice for the silent third person in the room. ‘You two?’

  The voice began. Whining; sing-song; tale-bearing; treacherous. Things Catherine’s father would never be. She listened, hating it. ‘Oh, it’s cunning,’ her non-father said to Christine (and Catherine thought suddenly: Perhaps he had a voice like that, long ago, when he and Louis and Christine were just three children playing together in the gardens?) ‘It’s cunning all right. It’s come here to the ghost of the weed garden … to the windy desert … so it can steal my soul. It says it doesn’t want it but I know.’

  Christine tightened her grip on Catherine’s hand, as if sensing her distress. ‘But you’re here with us,’ she said matter-of-factly to the voice. ‘You’re still here.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ it said quickly. ‘I’m not here. I’ve hidden myself. There are wild beasts in the woods. I’m staying still. So still. They won’t see me. I can be nothing. Quiet, quiet. Stop breathing. Nothing moves. Nothing is alive. Everything’s outside. They can’t see me here. I’m nothing. Nothing.’

  Despite herself, Catherine felt her face pucker. She concentrated on Christine’s hand, feeling its strength.