The Forbidden Queen

And so I was escorted ceremonially to my bedchamber, with much waspish chivvying at how any lack of experience would soon be put to rights, but my mother silenced any more silliness when she promptly closed the door, without any word of apology, on their startled faces. Outside the door they twittered their displeasure. Inside I flinched at the prospect of another homily. I could not escape it, so must withstand whatever advice she saw fit to administer. Soon I would be my own woman. Soon I would be Henry’s wife in more than name and God’s blessing. Soon I would be beyond my mother’s control and Henry would not be unkind to me.

As an unexpected little flicker of expectancy in my future at Henry’s side nudged at my heart, I stood while the gold and ermine was removed, my shoes and my stockings stripped off, until I was clad in nothing but my linen shift. And then I sat as instructed so that Guille, my personal serving woman, could unpin and comb my hair into virginal purity. Isabeau stood before me, hands folded.

‘You know what to expect.’

Did I? I was lamentably lacking in knowledge of that nature. My mother had resembled a clam, Michelle shyly reticent of her experiences with Philip, and I had had no loving nurse to ensure that I knew what to expect. I had quailed at asking Guille for such intimate details.

‘Or did the black crows at Poissy keep you in ignorance of what occurs between a man and a woman?’

Well, of course they had. The black crows considered anything pertaining to their bodies beneath their black robes to be a sin. My knowledge was of a very general nature, gleaned from how animals might comport themselves. I would not admit it to my mother. She would think it my fault.

‘I know what happens,’ I said baldly.

‘Excellent!’ She was clearly delighted that the burden of instruction would not fall on her as she moved to the cups and flagon set out on the coffer, poured the deep red liquid and held one of the cups out to me. ‘Drink this. It will strengthen your resolve. Rumour says that he is experienced, as he would be at his age, of course. He was a wild youth with strong appetites—he led a notorious life of lust and debauchery, so one hears, until he abandoned his dissolute companions.’

‘Oh.’ Obediently I took a sip, then handed the cup to Guille. I did not want it.

‘You will not be unwilling or foolishly naïve, Katherine.’

Would he dislike me if I made my ignorance obvious? That tender new shoot of optimism withered and died.

‘What must I not do that is naïve, Madame?’ I forced myself to ask.

‘You will not flinch from him. You will not be unmaidenly. You will not show unseemly appetites.’

Unmaidenly? Unseemly appetites? I was no wiser. Flinching from him seemed to be something I would very readily do. Will he hurt me? I wanted to ask, but rejected so naïve a question. I imagined she would say yes because it would please her.

‘Don’t sit there like a lump of carved stone! Do you understand me, Katherine?’

‘Yes.’

‘That is good. All he wants from you is a son—more than one for the security of the succession. If you prove fertile, if you breed easily, and there’s no reason that you shouldn’t since I did, then he’ll be quick to leave you alone.’ She frowned, deciding to say more.

‘They say that since his father’s death and gaining the English Crown, he has been abstemious. He is not driven by the demands of the body. He’ll not expect you to act the whore. Unless his years of chastity have fired his passions, of course.’ She frowned down at her hands, clasped before her. ‘It may be so. One never knows with men.’

My inner terrors leapt to a new level. How could I possibly play the whore? And if even my mother was uncertain…‘What does one not know about men?’ I managed.

‘Whether they have the appetite of the beast between the sheets.’

I swallowed. ‘Is it always…unpleasant?

‘In my experience, yes.’

‘Oh…Did Gaston have the appetite of a beast?’ I asked, remembering a particular flamboyant young courtier ensconced in the Hôtel de St Pol before I engaged my mind, and instantly regretted it. ‘Pardon, Madame.’

‘Impertinence does not become you, Katherine,’ Isabeau remarked. ‘All I will say is thank God the King’s madness has drained him of his urges. And one more thing—if Henry brings his associates with him to the bedchamber, don’t cower in the bed. You are a Valois princess. We will tie this proud King to this treaty. Now remove your shift and get into bed.’

She rounded on Guille, who still stood at my side, as motionless as a rabbit caught in the eye of a hunting stoat, comb in hand. ‘You will strip the bed tomorrow and parcel up the linens. If any one of these proud English should question my daughter’s virginity or her fitness to be the English queen, we will have the proof of it in the bloodstains.’

I closed my eyes. It would hurt.