Blood Royal Read online

  None of the schoolboys or tutors or servants had ever even seen Bishop Beaufort’s gift of a small sword. It had gone straight into a chest. No one had anything to say. Everyone listened, dazed, to Owain’s steady footsteps recede, then return, as if by a miracle, with the tiny chased weapon in his hand.

  Kneeling before the little King, Owain fastened the sword belt round his waist. Catherine could see the encouraging pat he gave the child; the tiny affirmative nod. She could see Harry, taking courage, nod back.

  Humphrey snorted, but he was slightly mollified by the sight of the sword. He’s not a bad man, Catherine told herself, trying to make herself believe it; it’s not as if any real harm will come to Harry. She tried to imagine Duke Humphrey and Bishop Beaufort riding side by side through the streets of London, flanking the Archbishop, getting over their quarrel, learning to talk to each other again. Tried to see merit in Harry’s being there too, learning the importance of peace.

  Still, she didn’t like the way that, as the knights trooped out behind Duke Humphrey, Harry failed to meet her eye, or the gaze of any of his other agonised, helpless well-wishers in the hall. He was staring blankly into the middle distance, letting the sword bump uselessly at his side, and, in a low, loud, tuneless voice, he was humming.

  When the knights, without Duke Humphrey this time, delivered Harry back to her the next evening, the little boy waited, slack-jawed and vacant-eyed, till they’d gone, then threw himself into her arms and clung so tightly to her that she could hardly breathe.

  ‘It’s all right, all right …’ she soothed anxiously, walking him to and fro, rocking away his hurt. She put him to bed herself, dispensing with the services of Dame Butler.

  He didn’t want to play with his ship. He didn’t say a word as she undressed and washed him, just whimpered and hummed, in that loud, strange, repetitive way. It was only when his eyes were heavy with sleep and the humming had finally stopped that she dared ask, ‘Was it nice to see Uncle Beaufort?’

  He loved the Bishop. She’d thought that would be the part of his trip he’d be least unhappy about remembering. She hadn’t expected his face to crumple and tears to come to his eyes at her question. He turned and buried his face in the cushion, sobbing.

  ‘Unca Bobo wasn’t there,’ she made out. ‘They said he’d run away. They said he was a coward.’

  ‘Uncle Humphrey said that?’ Catherine questioned, with her heart turning to iron against the Duke.

  ‘No … everyone,’ the little voice snivelled on. ‘When we went past the big wharf in the Vintry … all the men coming out of the inn to look at us … they were all shouting … saying rude things … they were going to throw Unca Bobo in the river … teach him to swim with wings.’

  Bishop Beaufort didn’t appear any more at Eltham, or Wallingford, or Windsor. They said he was in hiding at Southwark, in fear of his life. Later Duke Humphrey had him put on trial in a parliament held in Leicester. The Bishop was stripped of the Chancellor’s great seal, and encouraged to go overseas on an extended pilgrimage. Once he’d left England, Duke John made a gesture of peace by allowing him to take the Cardinal’s hat that Henry had always refused him. But Cardinal Beaufort wasn’t expected home anytime soon.

  Catherine didn’t expect to meet Edmund Beaufort now. But, by a quirk of fate, she was, after all, introduced to him by his mother at the end of the stormy Parliament at Leicester. Catherine had travelled there with Harry, so the child could appear at the opening and closing sessions. Beaufort was as tall and handsome and dark as the picture had suggested; lightly muscled and elegantly dressed; with his uncle’s wit and humour. He bowed low over Catherine’s hand and gave her soft looks from under perfectly respectable yet mischievous greenish eyes. ‘Ah, if only’, he said, with a mixture of charm and apparent sincerity, ‘our marriage had been arranged in time …’ Then, since they both knew that, at that very moment, at the other end of Leicester, Bishop Beaufort was being hustled out of his rooms to begin his long journey overseas, and the whole project was dead, he shrugged lightly. ‘How happy I would have been.’

  He spoke impeccable French, she noticed. His mother clung to her son, bursting with pride. ‘I can’t believe he’s back,’ she kept saying. ‘I can’t believe our good fortune.’ Catherine kept watching the perfect young man, long after the two of them had moved on through the hall. The Bishop had been right, she could see: Edmund Beaufort was full of promise, and would certainly rise to be something grand. But he wasn’t for her. She was surprised to find she didn’t mind at all. She remained oddly contented with her lot, husband or no husband.

  But Catherine missed the Bishop. She missed the delight she’d sensed about him when he’d thought she might marry his nephew. She missed the elegance and wit he’d brought to life.

  There was no more wit, or fun, or lightness of heart, now that Duke Humphrey was back in charge.

  Duke Humphrey’s New Year’s gift to Catherine was a law. It stated that the Queen Mother was forbidden to marry without the express permission of the Council of England.

  Now that Humphrey controlled everything, it meant that Catherine wouldn’t be allowed to marry without the express permission of Humphrey. She’d have to beg. He’d almost certainly turn her down. It was punishment. It was vindictive. It was revenge.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Catherine asked when Owain first brought her the news. ‘Is this law real?’ She couldn’t believe it. Humphrey wouldn’t be so contemptuous as to remove her one real liberty – to choose a new husband – without even bothering to tell her. Or would he?

  ‘Real enough. The scrivener who’s just come back from London heard the proclamation there. He said everyone was talking about it,’ Owain said baldly back. He added: ‘He must have heard about the Edmund Beaufort plan.’ His voice was stripped bare of the accusation she felt might have been there.

  Humphrey must have seen the miniature, Catherine thought, her mind racing to grasp what this might mean. Or someone must have told him something. If only she’d been clearer with the Bishop from the start. If only she’d said she didn’t want that handsome boy for her husband.

  She’d been a fool. She’d been too weak; too eager to please. Why hadn’t she thought?

  Too late for regrets now; too late for everything. She shook her head.

  ‘I wish I’d encouraged you to marry the Beaufort boy quickly,’ Owain said into the silence. ‘While there was still time. I gave you bad advice, maybe. I’m sorry if I did.’

  She was so moved by that that she almost reached out and squeezed his arm in gratitude. But the memory of how he’d reacted the only other time she’d tried to touch him came to her just in time. She made her hand drop back to her side.

  They walked on, side by side.

  ‘Humphrey will never agree to any marriage that I want,’ she said bleakly. ‘He’ll cut off all my paths to the future.’

  Owain shrugged. When he spoke, his voice was studiedly neutral. ‘There will be reasons of state for marrying you off sooner or later. You’re too valuable to be ignored. He’ll have to relent.’

  Catherine shook her head. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘He hates me.’

  She waited for Owain to protest again that no, it wasn’t so bad. But he kept his silence. There was just the sound of their feet, matching pace for pace on the iron-hard January earth.

  It wasn’t just Catherine who came in for punishment at the hands of Duke Humphrey. It was Harry too. The Duke sent word that Harry was to have more male discipline, and less mollycoddling.

  The gentle women Catherine had surrounded Harry with were removed. Feather-bedding, Duke Humphrey barked, and he sent Richard Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick, a stick-thin, stringy, mean-faced man, whom Catherine disliked on sight, to take charge of the King’s upbringing instead, as guardian and tutor.

  ‘He has my personal authority to beat the boy if he misbehaves,’ Duke Humphrey told Catherine at the ceremony, just before Harry’s fifth birthday, at which he knighted Harry, and Harry, in his turn,
waveringly touched his miniature sword to the shoulders of thirty-eight other young noblemen. Catherine made to protest, but Duke Humphrey overrode her voice. Raising his, he added, ‘And we’ll have no more of this nonsense about no fighting. The boy’s a King. It’s time he learned to behave like one.’

  Catherine said mutinously: ‘But he’s just turning five. He’s in my care until he turns seven. Until the protectorate ends. That’s what was agreed.’

  Duke Humphrey gave her a withering look. Ignoring that (the rules of the protectorate had been made up on the spot, and could be changed by the Council, and Duke Humphrey was, now he’d got rid of Bishop Beaufort, the leader of the Council), he finished: ‘I’ve told Warwick he can remove anyone he chooses from the household, too. So – no obstructive behaviour from anyone, do you understand? Make sure my orders are obeyed.’ With a brief, hostile bow, he moved away.

  Catherine stared resentfully after her brother-in-law, letting her thoughts chase through her head. This disrespect would never have happened in France, she thought, proudly remembering the Court of Love, and the exquisite charm of the princes, and trying not to remember the wars that had arisen out of that same French pride.

  The hot, reckless response that came first to her mind was that she wouldn’t ever let Warwick lay a finger on her son, and he’d better not dare try to.

  But Owain advised her to put aside all thoughts of resisting Humphrey’s changes. Owain went very quiet at first, when he heard that the Earl of Warwick would run the King’s household. But when, after a pause, he recovered his words, he quickly counselled Catherine: ‘Harry might thrive. He might be at just the age to enjoy having more men in his life. There might be more good in it than you realise. Warwick’s a hard man; a soldier. You don’t want to make an enemy of him needlessly. So, keep a close eye on things; but try and make the best of it, if you can.’

  Catherine wasn’t sure she trusted Owain’s usually astute judgement on this point. There seemed to be something too quick about the way he was rushing out this appeaser’s opinion. But in the end, with no one to support her if she tried to rebel, she found herself agreeing that caution was probably the most prudent course. Her only patron in England had been swept away, leaving her surrounded by powerful enemies; her own freedom had been limited; and she was still a foreigner who didn’t understand these people’s ways. She’d have to treat Warwick with care. She couldn’t fight by herself. Warwick wasn’t quite of her rank – not quite a royal duke – but Humphrey stood too close behind him to take him on.

  So the stern new order took shape. Instead of nursemaids, Harry was given four knights and four esquires of the body, all Beauchamps or other connections of the Earl of Warwick. He was also given his own doctor, the learned Master John Somerset, a wrinkled man of middle years, always cold, always wrapped in his furred robes, shivering.

  ‘You’ll like Master Somerset,’ Owain said quietly, catching her wrinkled nose when she first caught sight of him at the other end of the great hall at Windsor. (The royal household was confined now to four castles; her favourite, Eltham, was off limits.) ‘He’s a learned man. I met him at Oxford; he’s studied at Cambridge too. Give him a chance. He’ll be good for Harry.’

  So, for all her suspicion of the newcomers, Catherine tried to follow Owain’s guidance and make the best of things. Somerset and Owain began to spend time together in the evenings, in Somerset’s quarters (Owain’s, which she had never seen, she knew to be cell-like, too bare for receiving guests). She learned to feel affection for the old doctor, someone she could consult about Harry’s education and preferences and skills and trust to give her an honest answer. And although she didn’t warm instinctively to the Earl of Warwick’s hatchet face and thin, hard voice; although she was horrified when she saw the miniature suit of armour he’d had made for Harry being assembled around her son’s soft little body; she found, if she made an effort that she could, at least appreciate his loyalty to the English crown, his generous patronage of the poet John Lydgate, and, above all, his excellent French.

  But she could no longer slip into Harry’s chamber at night and sit quietly watching over him, praying for a future of peace and calm for him. She didn’t dare venture through the antechambers, with their charge of young men snoring and groaning and sweating and belching and thrashing their naked young limbs out of their blankets and curtains. So she couldn’t know for sure whether her child still slept soundly and quietly through the night. She just had to hope for the best, and shut her mind to the rest of her thoughts.

  ‘He’s a good little boy,’ Master Somerset told her reassuringly every time she asked. ‘Very obedient. Very eager to please.’

  But obedience wasn’t the quality the Earl of Warwick was supposed to instil in King Henry VI of England. Sometimes, on her anxious travels up and down stairwells, where the stone muffled and distorted sounds, she could swear she heard Harry’s voice screaming in fear. She saw so little of Harry now – glimpses, between bouts of riding and swordplay and archery, at meals or chapel – that she couldn’t check his little body for bruises and whip marks. No one ever admitted chastising him. There was nothing she could do.

  Once or twice she caught him hurrying somewhere, on mysterious errands of his own, set by his masters in the new world of men, with a busy, worried look on his face. She’d stop, leaning down, hugging him very tenderly, close enough at last to smell the innocence of him, and drawing him hastily aside into whatever the nearest quiet place was. ‘My darling,’ she tried, ‘I’ve seen so little of you lately; tell me what you’re doing today …’

  But he’d just submit to her embraces without enthusiasm. Look vacantly past her. Say, ‘My lord of Warwick will be angry if I’m late.’ And wriggle away. Perhaps, she thought disconsolately, trying to comfort herself, all boys distanced themselves from their mothers in this way sooner or later – he was five now, not a baby any more – and perhaps all mothers felt the same distress.

  It was only at the next Christmas festivities that her vague fears were given definite shape. When, after the New Year gift-giving, with the minstrels wailing away in the gallery and the hall full of young men, Harry gave the gawky young earl of Oxford a hard, suspicious look as he fastened the present that had been selected for him – a gold collar – round the youth’s Adam’s apple, with sudden suspicion, Catherine thought, ‘He doesn’t like John de Vere. I can see it.’

  She gave Oxford a hard look herself. She caught herself midway through it and shook her head. No, there was no harm in Oxford. He was a sweet boy; awkward but kind. He’d caught and set free the pigeon that had come fluttering into the hall last week. He’d never have done Harry any harm. She must have been imagining that look.

  She turned away and began chatting to Master Somerset, who was red-cheeked and talkative after too much claret. So she didn’t quite see the action that hushed everyone in the hall. By the time she whipped round, following the other staring eyes, Harry was standing with the gold collar in his hand again. Its clasp was broken. Oxford, who she now realised she’d heard yelp with surprise and pain, was rubbing his neck and looking bewildered. She realised Harry must have ripped the chain off the older boy’s neck. Defiantly, Harry turned away from Oxford and walked off to another young man she hadn’t yet spoken to – a Polish knight visiting the court, a tall young man with pale blue eyes and a snub nose. There’d been no gift for him. Harry must be troubled by what he saw as an injustice, Catherine thought. He was only a little boy, after all. ‘Sigmund,’ Harry piped self-importantly, holding up the collar to the newcomer, who, mortally embarrassed, blushed to the roots of his white-blond hair and looked around in agony for guidance from other eyes as to whether to accept this stolen present. Harry looked at the foreigner with adoration. ‘A gift from the King.’

  The Earl of Warwick wasn’t in the room, Catherine saw with relief. It was Master Somerset who caught the Polish youth’s eye and nodded that he should take the gift.

  The crowd settled and moved, wit
h backs turned to the scene, as the onlookers pretended they weren’t aware of the King’s odd behaviour. Catherine saw Master Somerset quietly approach Sigmund, beckoning. He clearly planned to wait until Harry’s attention was elsewhere, then reclaim the collar. But little Harry had trustingly stretched his hand up to the young knight’s and was walking him away to a window seat, chatting to him in his high child’s voice. Blushing deeper than ever, Sigmund made helpless eye and shoulder signals to the doctor. They could all see there was nothing he could do.

  Catherine hadn’t seen Owain. But he was there, moving with the swirling crowd. ‘The gold ring,’ he said quietly as he passed. ‘You could give it to Oxford. Amends.’

  She looked down at her hand. She was wearing the gold ring John of Bedford had sent Harry for Christmas three years ago – a foolish present for a child – which Harry, on Dame Butler’s advice, had given her last year. She nodded. Owain had an instinct for these things. That was the right course of action.

  Oxford was standing alone, still rubbing his neck with one hand. No one wanted to go up to him. No one wanted to be involved. Coming close, Catherine said quietly, ‘He’s very young,’ and shook her head, ‘but I am sorry for the pain he caused you.’ She slipped the ring into John de Vere’s huge, raw-boned, skinny hand. ‘It was my fault; a mistake with the presents. He knew this was the one meant for you, not the collar. But of course he shouldn’t have made the exchange like that … are you all right?’

  The young earl flushed up; his eyes went bright and soft at the gentleness of her voice. He mumbled his thanks – ‘a beautiful gift’ – bowed politely and, with dignity, retreated to the shadows at the edge of the hall.

  There was an angry bruise on Harry’s face that evening when Catherine came across him on the stairs. ‘Who did that to you?’ she asked indignantly. He didn’t answer. He just came into her arms, keening. She sat with him in the nearest alcove, feeling the stone cold against her skin, cradling him as he sobbed himself to exhaustion then began rocking against her, to and fro, humming and droning, staring at the sky. Rocking him in her turn, trying to restore a rhythm to his jerky movements that might calm him into sleep, she was suddenly, terrifyingly transported in her mind back to the white room where her father had once felt safe. To that other beloved figure, rocking and murmuring and staring at the birds wheeling free in the sky.