The Agincourt Bride

I began to unpin the folds of her stiff gauze veil and she helped me as I fumbled with the unfamiliar task. ‘You must have been nervous, Mademoiselle,’ I said, thinking that a mother and her long-lost daughter should have met in private, not conducted their reunion in the full view of the court.

Catherine nodded. ‘I was, at first. I had no idea what was expected of me, but then I realised that she did not want me to say or do anything. Just to be there so that everyone could see me. She was very gracious, very effusive. “I declare Catherine to be the most beautiful of my daughters,” she announced. “The most like me.”’

Catherine’s mimicry of her mother’s German accent was done straight-faced, but I saw that her eyes were dancing. ‘Praise indeed, Mademoiselle!’ I remarked, my own lips twitching.

‘Then she made me sit on a stool at her side and proceeded to talk over my head. The hall was full of people hanging on her every word. She said, “We must make the most of France’s beautiful daughter. I have commissioned the best tailors, the finest goldsmiths, the nimblest dance-masters!”’

I had only heard the queen’s voice once before, but Catherine’s impersonation was a wickedly accurate reminder of that fateful day in the rose garden.

When she spoke again, it was in her own soft tones. ‘I asked after my father, the king, but she merely said that he was as well as could be expected. Then I asked about Louis and she looked annoyed and said that the dauphin was away from court but would be back for the tournament

‘They have a huge tourney planned to entertain the English embassy. I am ordered to appear at my most alluring. The queen herself will choose my costume.’ Catherine sighed and her voice trembled as she asked, ‘What is she scheming, Mette?’

‘A marriage, undoubtedly, Mademoiselle,’ I said, removing the last pin, finally able to lift away the unwieldy veil.

‘Yes, inevitably – but to whom?’ She shook out her hair, running her hands through the thick, pale strands. I swear it had not darkened one shade since babyhood.

I saw no need to hesitate in my reply. ‘Why, to King Henry of England I suppose.’

Her brow wrinkled in alarm. ‘Surely not. He is old! Besides, does he not have a queen already?’

My heart lurched at the sight of her, tousle-haired and doe-eyed in the soft light from the wax candles. Whichever king or duke it was who got her would win a prize indeed.

I began to unlace her gown. ‘You have been in the convent a long time, Mademoiselle. The old King of England died more than a year ago. The new king, his son Henry, is said to be young, chivalrous and handsome – and in need of a wife.’

‘Young, chivalrous and handsome,’ Catherine echoed, rising to discard the voluminous jewel-encrusted court robe. I gathered it up with a grunt of effort and I did not envy her the wearing of it. ‘What do you call young?’ she queried ruefully, plucking at the ties of her chemise. ‘By my reckoning he must be at least six and twenty. Twice my age! That does not seem young to me.’

As she spoke, her chemise fell to the floor. A sumptuous velvet bed gown had been provided for her use and I held it out for her, marvelling at how slim and sleek the limbs that I remembered rounded and dimpled had become. Hugging the robe closed, she ran her hands over the silky fabric. ‘This is beautiful – so soft and rich. The nuns would think it enough to put my soul in danger,’ she remarked.

‘Seeing you without it would put King Henry’s soul in danger!’ I countered with a twinkle.

This brought a girlish blush to her cheek and I reflected that nubile though she now was, she was still little more than a child. What could she know, fresh from her convent, of the power of her own beauty or the strength of male lust? Mademoiselle Bonne was right; Catherine did need a wise and steady hand to guide her, but I feared the jealous, opinionated daughter of Armagnac was not the right one for the job.

8

With her new-found indulgence towards ‘the most beautiful of my daughters’, the queen promised Catherine anything she wanted and it turned out that what she wanted most, God bless her, was me. The nuns of Poissy had taught her Greek and Latin and the Rule of St Dominic, but in their strict regime of lessons, bells and prayers there had been no room for love or laughter and, instinctively, she knew where she might find both.

So, in order to keep me close, she gave me two rooms on the top floor of her tower. I do not believe she can have remembered, and I never discussed it with her, but one of them was the small turret chamber where I had lit those secret fires for her as a baby, and the other, the larger chamber adjoining it, was where the infants and the donkeys had once slept. This one had a hearth and chimneypiece, a window overlooking the river and in the thickness of the outer wall, much to my joy, a latrine. In the past this floor of the tower had been used as a guardroom for the arbalesters who patrolled the battlements and so it was accessible from the curtain wall-walk, which meant that once the sentries got to know them, my family would be able to come and go without passing through Catherine’s private quarters.

‘You will need to have your family around you, Mette,’ she told me earnestly. ‘I would not like to think that being with me took you away from your own children.’ It was no wonder I loved her. I swear there was not another royal or courtier in the palace who would have given a second’s thought to the family life of a servant.

Originally the accommodation had been ear-marked for those of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting yet to be appointed and they were rooms that Bonne of Armagnac had counted on filling with some of her own favourites, so when she heard that I was to be given them, she went straight to the queen’s master of the household and complained that I was unsuitable for such preferment and would be a pernicious influence on Princess Catherine. Me – a pernicious influence on the daughter of the king! I had certainly come up in the world. It would have been funny if it had not been so alarming. I had seen what happened to servants who offended their lords and masters. I did not want to end up shackled in the Châtelet or even to become one of the mysteriously ‘disappeared’.

Luckily Lord Offemont, the wily old diplomat who ran the queen’s household, understood only too well the jealousies and machinations of court life and managed to mollify Mademoiselle Bonne with some even more desirable accommodation for her protégées, but the episode further strained relations between me and the future Duchess of Orleans.

When Catherine heard of Alys’ sewing talent, she immediately arranged for her also to be transferred to her ever-growing household, which meant that instead of endlessly hemming the queen’s sheets and chemises, my nimble-fingered little daughter found herself tending the princess’ new wardrobe, sewing fashionable trimmings onto beautiful gowns which, needless to say, she loved.

Ah, those gowns! A score of them were ordered, all truly fabulous; designed and constructed by the best tailors using gleaming Italian brocades, embroidered velvets and jewel-coloured damasks, the hems of their trailing sleeves intricately dagged into long tear-drops or edged with sumptuous Russian furs. Despite their constant complaints about unpaid bills, the craftsmen of Paris clamoured for the patronage of this new darling of Queen Isabeau’s court. Tailors, hatters, hosiers, shoemakers, glovers and goldsmiths flocked to Catherine’s tower, filling the ground-floor ante-room with their wares and spilling out into the cloister until it began to resemble a street-market where the fashion-mad young ladies-in-waiting fell over each other to handle lustrous silks and gauzes, try soft Cordovan leather slippers and exclaim over exquisite jewelled collars, brooches and buckles. It was these ladies who decided which craftsmen and traders should be invited to present their wares personally to the royal client and I soon learned that their decisions were not made on merit alone. Even I was promised a silver belt-buckle if I would clear the path to Catherine’s door but, although as one of Catherine’s key-holders I had recently taken to wearing a belt, I angrily refused the offer and roundly scolded the offender.

My intimate relationship with the princess was a constant irritation to Bonne of Armagnac and flashpoints occurred almost daily. I tended to keep a close, motherly eye on my chick, whereas Bonne’s attitude was more didactic, offering copious advice and instruction but often leaving Catherine to flounder in awkward situations.

Entering the salon at the height of the fashion frenzy, I found the princess cowering in her canopied chair surrounded by a bevy of tradesmen all gabbling at once and thrusting samples of their wares in her face. For a young girl only a few days out of the convent, it was a distressing situation and, seeing Catherine close to tears, I inwardly cursed Bonne and her silly court creatures, conspicuous by their absence, being unable to resist the temptations displayed in the cloister.

‘Shame on you, masters,’ I protested, pushing the men aside. ‘The princess will make no decisions while you rant at her like that!’ I bobbed a knee before Catherine’s chair. ‘Forgive me, highness, but it is time to prepare for court. Have I your permission to clear the room?’

‘Yes, thank you, Mette,’ she murmured and I shooed the importunate craftsmen through the door, still trying vainly to cry their wares. Catherine was visibly shaken, her hands white-knuckled on the arms of her chair. ‘That was horrible!’ she exclaimed. ‘I did not know what to do. They just kept coming. I feel so foolish.’

I was about to point out that she should not have been left without support when Bonne arrived looking flustered. Seeing me, her expression changed abruptly.

‘Oh, it is you,’ she said coldly. ‘The masters said some wimpled hag had dismissed them.’ Pointedly turning her back on me, she addressed Catherine in a more circumspect tone. ‘Could you make no choices, Madame? It will be hard to dress you adequately for court if no accessories are selected. Did the masters offend you in some way?’

‘Yes,’ replied Catherine, lifting her chin and fixing Bonne with a suddenly dry and steely gaze. ‘There were too many in the room and I should not have been left alone with them. Fortunately Mette came to my aid.’

Colour flooded Bonne’s creamy cheeks. ‘I crave your pardon, Madame. They were only the most worthy craftsmen. I thought your highness understood that furnishing your wardrobe is a matter of urgency.’

‘That may be so, but I do not have to be pestered,’ Catherine retorted. ‘The queen relies on you to help me, Mademoiselle, and I think she would not be pleased to hear that you left me alone with all those men, however worthy you consider them.’

Bonne had no alternative but to look contrite and murmur another apology, but the most galling thing for her was probably not the reprimand but the fact that it was delivered in my presence.

Of course there were times when Bonne came into her own. Catherine was summoned daily by the queen to attend a meal or an entertainment or be presented to a visiting dignitary. Mademoiselle of Armagnac was an expert on protocols and pedigrees and before each visit was able to relay snippets of useful information picked up from her court-wise father. These coaching sessions intensified as the grand tournament approached, a day Catherine was dreading.

‘Oh the tournament, the tournament! The queen never stops talking about it,’ she complained one morning, fidgeting fretfully as a gesticulating tailor issued quick-fire instructions to Alys, who was kneeling before Catherine, pinning final adjustments to the magnificent gown ordered for the princess’ first grand public appearance. A high-waisted, sweep-skirted style known as the houppelande was the new height of fashion at the French court and Queen Isabeau had insisted that this vitally important example of it should be tailored from cloth-of-gold, which would clearly demonstrate Catherine’s high value in the marriage market. I was no expert on fashion but I thought the heavy gold gown threatened to overwhelm her fair, translucent beauty.

‘The queen keeps reminding me that the English envoys will be reporting every detail of my appearance and behaviour back to King Henry and that I have the honour of France to uphold. It makes me so nervous that I will probably fall over or come out in spots.’

I overheard this comment whilst busy tidying behind the guarderobe curtain and I immediately wanted to rush out and tell her that there was not a princess in the whole of Christendom more brilliant and beautiful than she, but with Mademoiselle Bonne supervising the fitting I let discretion rule me.

She took a less reassuring line. ‘I’m sure the queen only wishes to remind you of how much is at stake, Madame,’ I heard her say. ‘If there is no marriage there will be no treaty with the English and war will inevitably follow. My father tells me that the treaty talks are at a crucial stage and Cardinal Langley is a very slippery customer.’

‘I cannot think why King Henry sent a cardinal to do his wooing,’ Catherine grumbled. ‘What does a celibate know about marriage?’

I smiled to myself, hearing the schoolgirl speaking. One day someone would tell her of the many former convent pupils ensconced as the paramours of primates.

Mademoiselle of Armagnac was not put off her stride. ‘Cardinal Langley is a diplomat first and a priest second, Madame. When it comes to a royal marriage, the bride is always part of an extended negotiation.’ It occurred to me that Bonne might have been describing her own marriage. ‘In such circumstances birth and pedigree are of paramount importance.’

‘So why does the queen lay so much store by my appearance?’ retorted Catherine. ‘I am the King’s daughter – that is all they need to know.’

Bonne shook her head. ‘A queen who charms her lord and husband can influence his actions. The cardinal may not take this into account but the queen certainly does. This marriage is not just to seal a peace between France and England. She wants you to seduce King Henry into making your enemies his enemies.’

Bonne’s shrewd analysis of the machinations of diplomacy did not surprise me for she was born to it. Although neither prince nor duke, the Count of Armagnac had nevertheless manipulated himself onto the Royal Council and won his daughter a marriage to the king’s nephew. Bonne had clearly observed and absorbed her father’s serpentine skills.

However, Catherine’s response equally clearly demonstrated that her lady-in-waiting had not cornered the market in clear thinking. ‘Yes, I can see how that would benefit the queen,’ she mused, ‘as long as my enemies are her enemies.’

I could not see Bonne’s expression, but her silence was eloquent. I wondered how long it would be before this remark reached the queen’s ears.

The Grand Tournament brought Paris out en fête. It was held on Shrove Tuesday, the last permitted day before the onset of Lent brought a temporary halt to such war games. Even the palace servants were encouraged to go and watch, so Alys and I joined the throng jamming the streets leading to the royal tourney-ground beside the Seine.

It lay on flat land in the shadow of the Louvre, the ancient fortress of the old kings of France, whose towering battlements and fearsome, impregnable donjon still guarded the royal exchequer. Gaily decked pavilions had been erected along the curtain wall, ready for royal and court spectators and before them stretched the lists, two sandy gallops the width of a field-strip, divided by a stout jousting rail, while beyond the arena a series of railed-off enclosures waited to receive the common herd, and beyond these ran the river Seine with flotillas of boats and barges moored as viewing platforms for extra spectators. At one end of the ground stood the Heralds’ Gate, a painted wooden barbican fluttering with flags and banners that marked the entrance from the knights’ encampment, a field full of gaudy tents displaying the colours and devices of hundreds of participating knights who had ridden in from every corner of Europe, eager for a chance to win prize money and display their combat skills.

The day was cold and bright and under a clear blue sky the air seemed to vibrate with the sound of neighing horses, whistling grooms, rattling harness and ringing anvils. It was a number of years since Paris had hosted a spectacle of this magnitude and, except for the great festivals of the church, I had never seen such a massive gathering of people. Hawkers manned every vantage point, crying their wares; spiced ale and wine, hot pies, pardons, cures and tawdry trinkets. Bands of musicians played on street corners, their instruments screeching out of tune as each battled to be heard above the next. Hordes of students and apprentices, granted a day off to join the fun, brought their rowdy rivalries out into the squares and fights sprang up without warning. Alys and I held hands tightly so as not to lose each other as we elbowed our way through to the arena reserved for royal servants where we squeezed onto a bench which gave us a clear view both of the lists and of the royal pavilion.

In due course a loud fanfare of trumpets announced the grand entry of the royal party, which processed slowly down a covered wooden stairway, specially erected to give access from the soaring walls of the castle. One by one the king, queen and their eminent guests acknowledged the crowd and then seated themselves on cushioned thrones and benches set under an emblazoned canopy. Heraldic banners fluttered from the pavilion’s roof, depicting the personal crests of every seated celebrity and somehow lilies had been grown in mid-winter, which nodded their noble heads solemnly along the parapet. From our lowly viewpoint the royal family and their guests resembled a row of gorgeous dolls, clad in brilliant hues, sable-lined against the cold and so laden with precious stones that they glinted blindingly in the flat February sun.

It was no easy task for Catherine to stand out amongst this muster of peacocks, but in the end her beauty and simple elegance paid off. The fabulous gold gown, flowing and pearl-trimmed, glowed serenely against the scintillating glitter of her parents’ showy magnificence, and her gleaming pale gold hair, falling loosely from a pearl-studded circlet, rippled down her back like a silk oriflamme. (And so it should. God knows I had brushed it hard enough!) It was the custom on formal occasions at the French court for unmarried girls to leave their hair loose and uncovered, which meant that beside the queen and the other royal ladies with their elaborately veiled and jewelled headdresses, Catherine looked fresh and nubile and, to put it bluntly, eloquently marriageable. I have to confess that while my heart swelled with pride at the sight of her beauty, my stomach churned at her vulnerability.

‘If this king does not get her, then the next one will,’ I whispered to myself, brushing a sudden tear from my eye.

‘She looks like an angel!’ cried Alys, her sweet round face flushed with adoration. ‘There can be no lady in the world more beautiful than Princess Catherine!’

‘Let us hope the fat cardinal thinks so then,’ growled a voice from the row behind. ‘Otherwise the English excrement will be sailing up the Seine come September.’

I turned to look at the speaker. He wore the blue and gold livery of a royal chamberlain and was bleary-eyed and stubble-chinned, with a sharp, foxy face and probably a bald head beneath his draped black hat. ‘It will not be Princess Catherine’s fault if they do,’ I countered, adding a smile on the grounds that I had few enough chances to glean palace gossip and did not want to kill the conversation stone dead.

He responded with a meaningful wink. ‘Aye, she is a beauty all right. Any man would like to get her maidenhead! … What?’ He stopped abruptly, warned by my fierce frown and head-jerk in Alys’ direction.

Anxious to steer him onto a less prurient topic, I pointed to the red-faced cleric seated on Catherine’s left, whose crimson soutane was stretched tightly over his substantial belly. ‘I take it that is Cardinal Langley,’ I said, ‘and they are the king and queen on her other side. We work for the princess but we do not get a chance to see the other royals at all.’

As if to make amends for his vulgarity, the chamberlain became quite voluble. ‘There is no mistaking the queen – see all the jewels she wears, three times more than anyone else – and the king beside her, poor devil. He looks all right from here but he is as simple as a six year old. I know this because I empty his bath and he has a fleet of wooden ships that he plays with.’ Registering my incredulous expression, he nodded vigorously. ‘It is God’s truth. The lady beside him is the dauphiness. I am surprised she is here. The dauphin cannot stand her and usually keeps her locked up in a nunnery. He only lets her out when he absolutely has to.’

I stared at the lady in question – Marguerite of Burgundy, a thin, whey-faced creature who looked older than I knew her to be, which was about twenty. She was richly dressed in ruby velvet liberally embroidered with dolphins and daisies. The dauphin might not want her as his wife, but she was defiantly declaring her status by linking his heraldic dolphin device with her own marguerites.

‘Is she not the Duke of Burgundy’s daughter?’ I asked, keen to prompt more information. Fox-face had a wine skin clamped between his thighs, from which, by the looseness of his tongue, he had been drinking freely.

‘Yes, that is the trouble. The dauphin hates her father’s guts so he wants nothing to do with her. Perhaps she prefers being locked up in a nunnery to being married to him, but it is my bet she prays for the day the Duke of Burgundy comes back to Paris!’

I chose my next words carefully. ‘I hear that he still has many followers in the city.’

A grin split the chamberlain’s narrow face and he nodded vigorously. ‘So he does and they say that he is wooing the English as well, offering his own daughter, Catherine, as bait. Hey, look – the fun is about to start!’

Another loud blast of trumpets announced the first joust, a contest between the dauphin and the Earl of Dorset, the English king’s uncle who was leading the embassy. The two contenders cantered up to the royal pavilion to make their salute. It was the first time I had clapped eyes on Prince Louis since he had quit the palace garden as a nine year old boy and frankly I was shocked.

Now eighteen, he could only be described as fat. No – he was obese! I had been expecting an older, taller version of the lanky boy who had dropped the caterpillar down my bodice. It hadn’t occurred to me that the deprivations of his youth might have turned him into a glutton. Only a half-blind sycophant could have called him handsome, for his features were blurred by puffy jowls and multiple chins, his eyes appeared mean and small, sunk into the flesh of his cheeks and his hair was shaved high up the back of his head in the mode currently favoured by young men-about-court, exposing thick rolls of fat on the back of his neck. Only his aquiline Valois nose remained distinctive, unmistakably declaring his lineage. In his huge suit of armour his body was a vast metal hulk covered with a blue and gold surcôte and squashed into a high-cantled jousting saddle. Somehow a horse had been found strong enough to bear his weight, but getting him onto its back must have required substantial lifting-gear. Even from afar he did not look well. If he had still been in my charge I would have prescribed a strong purge and a prolonged diet of bread and water.

Although in boyhood Louis had been the brighter of the two princes, it was Jean who had excelled with the sword and, now that he was a man, Louis still showed little skill at knightly pursuits. To the disappointment of the crowd, he was trounced by the considerably older Earl of Dorset whose lance scored a direct hit on the first pass, such as would have lifted a normal man out of the saddle but which barely nudged the elephantine heir of France. My garrulous neighbour informed me that the rules of chivalry stipulated that the loser in a joust must forfeit the price of his armour, which in the dauphin’s case must have been a considerable sum, so it was hardly surprising that Prince Louis was puce with anger when he joined his family in the royal pavilion to watch the rest of the tournament.