The Forbidden Queen. Anne O'Brien

would like to be wed,’ I managed, as a dutiful daughter must.

      ‘But will you make a good wife? You should be perfect for my purposes. You’re pretty enough, your blood is Valois, you’re well formed and there’s nothing to suggest that you will not be fertile,’ she mused as my cheeks flushed. ‘It is unfortunate, of course, that he has refused you once.’

      ‘Who has refused me, maman?’

      ‘That blood-drenched butcher Henry.’

      I blinked, all attention. All shock.

      ‘Henry of England,’ Isabeau retorted, as if I were ignorant rather than astonished. ‘Your dowry wasn’t good enough, high enough, rich enough, for his august consideration.’

      This robbed me of all responses. The weight in my chest became a flutter of nerves. I had been offered to the King of England, my dowry negotiated and my hand rejected. All without my knowing.

      ‘The question is, can we change his mind?’ She released me with a snap of her fingers as if she might magic some solution from the cold room.

      I was free to step back, away. And did so, but found the words to ask, ‘Does he still consider me, if he has refused me once?’

      ‘He wants France,’ Isabeau responded willingly enough, as if pleased to have an audience, but the sneer in her voice put me in my place. ‘It wasn’t enough for him to drain our lifeblood at Agincourt. He wants France for himself and his heirs, by some ancient line of descent from his long-dead Valois ancestress Isabella, who wed an English king.’ She turned her stare back on me. ‘He offered to wed you but only on condition that you came with two million gold crowns sewn into your shift as your dower. Two million.’

      So much. My breath slammed into my throat. I could not imagine so many gold coins.

      ‘Am I worth so much, maman?’ It was beyond belief to me.

      ‘No. Of course you are not. We offered six hundred thousand crowns, and told the English King he was lucky to get as much, considering the state of our finances. So he demanded eight hundred thousand, and a trousseau, but no less. And that was the end of that. We haven’t got it, and the King is too witless to be able to don his own hose, much less debate a treaty.’

      ‘So he does not want me.’ My hopes, once soaring, now dipped like a summer swallow. ‘I will not be Queen of England.’

      ‘You might if we are able to remind him of your existence. So how do we remind your prince, ma petite?’ Her endearment might be tender but her tone was brittle mockery as she grasped my shoulders and forced me to face her. ‘Do we trail you onto a battlefield, so that he might catch a glimpse of your qualities as his sword cuts a vicious path through our French subjects? Or do we exhibit you at a siege, where he can peruse a possible bride on his right while he starves our people to death on his left?’ She released me abruptly.

      ‘Sometimes I see no way forward with such a man. But I must be persuasive. We need him. We need him in an alliance with Valois against those who would reduce France to civil war. And perhaps I see a way. We could send him a portrait, so that he can see your prized Valois features for himself, before his eye begins to stray elsewhere.’ Isabeau tapped a foot as her gaze once more rested thoughtfully on my face.

      Her words sank deep into my mind. If Henry of England looked elsewhere for a bride, what would become of me? The enclosing walls of Poissy loomed higher and colder. Marriage to even a hostile suitor, a man who had spilled French blood without compunction on the battlefield at Agincourt, would have something to recommend it, especially if he were a King and rich. And so I was brave—or desperate—enough to take hold of Isabeau’s trailing gilt-embroidered sleeve.

      ‘It would please me to wed Henry of England,’ I heard myself say. Even I heard the desperation in my voice. ‘If you could remind him of my existence.’ I swallowed hard as I saw the disdain for my naïvety in Isabeau’s eyes. And without thinking I asked the question that leapt into my mind. A young girl’s question. ‘Is he young?’ And then another. ‘Is he good to look at?’

      Isabeau shook my hand from her sleeve and walked towards the door, her skirts making a brisk hush of displeasure against the bare boards, so that I regretted my failure to guard my words.

      ‘Foolish questions. You are too importunate, Katherine. No man will wish to wed a woman who steps beyond what is seemly. The King of England will want a quiet, biddable girl.’ Her lips stretched from elegant moue to implacable line as she considered. ‘But perhaps I will send a portrait, and perhaps the outlay for a competent artist will prove worth the spending.’ Her lips smiled but her eyes acquired a gleam, like a fisherman planning to outwit a pike that had run him ragged for far too long.

      ‘Perhaps all is not lost and we can still shackle Henry to our side. You might still be the keystone in our alliance, ma petite Katherine. Yes.’ She smiled, a little more warmly. ‘I will arrange it.’

      And she did, whilst thoughts of marriage filled my mind.

      Why did I want this marriage so very badly? It was more than wealth and rank. Far more. All I knew was that this marriage would be the opening of a door into another world: a world that could not be worse than the one in which I had lived out my childhood.

      In truth, I yearned for affection, for love. Why should I not find it with King Henry of England? I cared not if he was as ugly as the devil or the despoiler of our noble French aristocracy on the battlefield. I would be a wife, and Queen of England, and that must be a blessing. Perhaps he would grow to like me, and I to like him.

      ‘Don’t give him another thought, Kat,’ Michelle remarked on a visit to me—for she did not forget me in her new role of Duchess of Burgundy. ‘You’ve neither seen him nor spoken with him, and he’s twice your age. He only asked for you after he asked for our sister Isabella. And then Jeanne. And even Marie.’ Michelle ticked the names of our sisters off on her fingers with cynical precision. ‘How did I manage to escape? Perhaps he did not realise I existed. And now I am no longer available.’ Her face was stern with her warning.

      ‘Face it, Kat. Any daughter of France would do for him. It is not a matter of love, but of vainglory. Rejected by Isabella and Jeanne and Marie, conceit will not allow him to be slighted again. That’s the only reason he persists—and you are the only princess left.’

      There was no arguing against that, but still I clutched at a golden future.

      ‘He’ll forget all about you as soon as another candidate is paraded before him.’ Michelle completed her destruction. ‘He’ll not see you, will he, shut away in this place? And even if he did, you’re not a desirable object. If we can’t offer a dowry closer to the two million gold crowns he demanded, he’ll see you as little better than a beggar and reject you out of hand—again. You’ll have Isabeau shrieking at you before long that you are of no value to her.’

      I sighed, but continued to hug my long-cherished hopes close in the dark hours, where they began as a bright beacon on a hilltop, but gradually dwindled to a weakly flickering candle flame as the weeks passed and there was no news. Forlornly I considered my situation. Isabeau would be angry because I had failed to catch Henry’s interest. Even worse—far, far worse to my mind—was the thought that Henry did not want me. It seemed that the convent doors were preparing to slam shut, to close me in for ever.

      To my relief Isabeau did not descend on Poissy to vent her fury, but the portrait did. I saw it, because Michelle brought it to me, before it was swathed in soft leather to protect it from weather and sea water on its journey, and was truly appalled. The artist was either lacking in talent or had been paid too little. The long Valois features were there right enough, and not beyond liking, for my oval face was not uncomely, my neck had a certain poise. But my lovely hair was completely bundled up and obscured by a headdress with padded rolls over deep crispinettes, the whole structure made complete with a short muslin veil that neither flattered nor seductively concealed. As for my skin, always pale, it had been given more than a touch of the sallow. My lips were a thin slash of paint and my brows barely visible.