The Forbidden Queen. Anne O'Brien

loyalty in hard cash. The army’s a constant drain—will you organise a body of royal commissioners to follow on behind to receive loans that are freely offered—or not so freely? It’s quicker than going cap in hand to Parliament.’

      ‘I’ll organise it,’ Humphrey offered.

      ‘Do I go with you?’ James asked wistfully.

      Henry shook his head. ‘Stay in London.’

      So he was rejected too. Since there was no reason for me to stay with what was fast becoming a discussion of financial and military policy, masking my raw dismay behind a spritely step, I made my way to the door.

      ‘If you will excuse me, my lords.’

      Henry looked up from the list of loans already promised, handed to him by Humphrey. He promptly cast the list aside and covered the space between us.

      ‘Forgive me, Katherine. How unthinking I was, and after your glorious day.’ His smile was wry. ‘I know you’ll understand by now that when I am focused on the next campaign, I forget the needs of those around me.’ The smile twisted, even more ruefully, appealingly. ‘I’ll not abandon you completely,’ he said. ‘I have made plans for you to join me at Kenilworth. We will go on from there together to the north. We’ll enjoy a somewhat late honeymoon, without the pressure of battles and sieges. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

      ‘Oh, yes!’

      All my hopefulness returned. So I was not to be entirely cut out of his life. If we travelled slowly together and he was not engaged in warfare, if I could match the sort of wife he wanted and show him that I loved him, then he would come to love me. I knew that he would.

      Henry came to me that night, entering my room without a knock, and I was pleased to stretch out my hand in greeting. Stripping off his clothes, he assuaged his need with customary efficiency and speed.

      ‘Stay with me,’ I invited. ‘Stay with me because tomorrow you will leave me.’

      ‘I cannot, Katherine. Not tonight. When we are on progress, then I will. But I have too many demands on my time as yet.’

      And I am not one of them.

      ‘Will you miss me?’ I asked, ingenuously. ‘Will you miss me just a little?’

      He looked surprised. ‘Of course. Are you not the bride I always wanted?’

      ‘I do hope so,’ I replied.

      ‘You are, without a doubt.’

      With a kiss to my lips, a smile and a graceful bow, at odds with his informal chamber robe, Henry left me holding tight to his assurances. As it must with any woman, it crossed my mind: did Henry, handsome and powerful, perhaps have a lover? Did he go from my bed to the arms of one of the palace servants who could entice him with sharp wit and languorous caresses?

      I did not think so; I had no earthly rival. I had to fight against a God-ordained obligation to England and Henry’s vision of his country as the pre-eminent power in Europe. I did not think I would ever emerge the victor in such a contest.

      Holy Mother, have mercy on me. At my prie-dieu I prayed harder than I had ever prayed. If I carried the heir he so desperately desired, Henry might acknowledge me as part of his dream for the future, rather than as a burden to be shouldered or put aside as time and necessity dictated.

      ‘How does a woman fall for a child?’ I asked. Alice’s much-vaunted feverfew was not working. ‘What must I do to ensure my fertility?’

      What a collection of raised brows and rounded mouths. Prayer was good, but I knew I must take counsel elsewhere. I steeled myself to it.

      There was a silence in the artlessly decorative group of damsels, stitching and reading in the late afternoon.

      Had I shocked them? Did English Queens not ask such intimate questions? I felt my face colour with heat but my need was greater than my shame. They—my damsels—had been universally cool since our establishment back in their own milieu. Poised, at ease in the ceremonial ways of the court, I thought that they scorned my lack of aplomb. Respectful for the most part, for they would not deign to be less than deferential towards the King’s wife, there was no warmth for their foreign mistress. I found them hard to read. I had made no friends there. With no practice in making friends, I had no pattern of experience to use to court and win affection.

      But this was urgent. I needed advice.

      Meg pursed her lips. ‘Your hips are very small, my lady, for sure. It can make childbearing difficult.’

      My hands clenched into fists, well hidden in the soft silk of my skirts. So the fault was mine that I did not conceive. As perhaps it was, but I heard the disdain for my failure behind the carefully phrased fact.

      ‘His Majesty is capable, my lady,’ Beatrice observed. They would know how often Henry came to my bedchamber, of course.

      ‘Yes.’ The heat in my face became more intense.

      Joan, the youngest of my damsels, with a kinder eye, spoke up. ‘My sister says that if you grind the dried testicle from a wild pig into powder, mix it in wine and drink it, the result is excellent.’

      ‘Do we have a testicle of a wild pig?’ I heard myself asking, unnerved at the advice.

      A silence. A pause. Then my damsels erupted into laughter, with an edge that was, to my mind, not kind at all. I thought they looked at me with pity, even when Alice took them to task.

      ‘I have heard of such a nostrum, Joan, but that was not helpful. Unless you are volunteering to go and kill a wild pig for us? And you can take Beatrice with you. Her scowl will kill a boar at twenty paces. I think we can do better. If you carry a walnut in its shell, my lady, it will strengthen your womb and aid fertility.’

      ‘If you eat walnuts, it is said to cure madness.’

      I froze, heated skin now pale and cold at this unexpected wounding. Anguish ripped through me that Cecily would make it so personal an attack. Could they be so deliberately cruel? I turned to her, prepared to defend my father.

      ‘Enough, Cecily!’ It was Beatrice who came to my aid. ‘Your manners are not what your mother would wish for you. I suggest you say a rosary before dinner and pray to the Holy Virgin for humility.’

      While to me, with compassion in her face, Alice advised, ‘We will tuck some leaves of polygonum bistorta into your sleeves. And if you will eat some of the seeds of the Helianthus flowers, my lady…’

      ‘And you, Cecily, might pray that fragility of mind never touches one of your family.’ Beatrice continued her admonitions to my pert damsel. But I knew that Beatrice’s loyalty was to Henry and the as yet unconceived heir rather than to me.

      ‘Forgive me, my lady.’ Cecily’s eyes dropped before mine.

      ‘Thank you,’ I said to Alice, smiling at Beatrice, hanging on to dignity.

      ‘It’s early days,’ soothed Alice. Then added sternly, ‘And this flock of clucking fowl should know better than to mock a woman in such need.’

      My damsels sniffed at the reprimand and laughed in corners, even when they knew I would hear them.

      No, I made no friends with my ladies in waiting.

      Perhaps it was at Leicester where I eventually caught up with Henry on his progress. Or perhaps it was York. Or even Beverley. Or perhaps I did not actually go to Beverley. I remember Henry enveloping me in his arms, lifting me from my litter, welcoming me with gratifying heat, but in the end one town merged with yet another, towns I did not know and have little memory of, where the inhabitants thronged the streets to cheer us, fêting us with banquets and entertainments and lavish gifts of gold and silver. So pleased they were to see and entertain their King after so long an absence.

      And his new French wife, of course. Henry continued in good mood, receiving the professions of loyalty with gracious words,