The Agincourt Bride. Joanna Hickson

At least I was able to take the children out to play every day, although Madame la Bonne made it a strict rule that we were only to go to the old queen’s abandoned rose garden because we could get there from the nursery without encountering anyone of consequence. She did not want a nosy official querying the state of the royal children’s clothing, did she? Nor – heaven forefend – did she want some inadvertent meeting between the queen and her own offspring!

      As for the queen herself, as the summer progressed and the August heat became stifling in the city, she set off in a long procession of barges for the royal castle at Melun, further up the Seine. Soon after her departure, word spread that she was pregnant and, in view of the timing, rumour again flared that the child was not the king’s but had been fathered by the Duke of Orleans during the last royal absence. I did my own calculations and came to the conclusion that she could just about be given the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the king did the same because there was no sign of any rift between himself and his brother or his queen.

      At about the same time, I began to notice certain changes in my own body. It was popular belief that nursing a child prevented the next one coming along, but this did not hold true for me. My mother put it all down to Saint Monica of course and Jean-Michel boasted to his stable-mates that it took more than a royal nursling to stop him becoming a father!

      Madame la Bonne said nothing until it became obvious that I was breeding, when she sniffed and said, ‘It’s time Catherine was weaned anyway. You can leave at Christmas.’

      Remembering the miseries of the previous Christmas, I hastily assured her that since my baby was not due until spring, I could stay well into the New Year. I could not bear to think of Catherine having only the donkeys and Madame la Bonne to look after her, but I knew I had to steel myself for the inevitable parting. Perhaps, had it not been for my own babe, I might have timed Catherine’s weaning so that I could have remained as wet nurse for the queen’s new child, but I knew that no lowborn baby would be allowed to stay in the royal nursery or share the royal milk supply. Our time together was drawing inexorably to a close. Soon after her first birthday, Catherine began to take wobbling steps and I started feeding her bread and milk pap, and by February, when the queen’s new son was born, I had prepared her as best I could for the arrival of her new sibling.

      Far from questioning the paternity of his latest offspring, the king was so delighted to have another son that he insisted he should be called Charles, apparently unconcerned by the fact that both previous princes of that name had died young. Like all his siblings before him, this new Charles popped obligingly from the queens womb, was baptised in silk and pearls and then brought to the nursery, well away from his parents’ attention. His wet-nurse was another nobody, like myself, who could be exploited by Madame la Bonne but, I like to think unlike myself, she was a timid individual who took no interest in the older children and confined herself to suckling the baby and gossiping with the donkeys. She was a deep disappointment to me, because I had hoped she might be the motherly type who would give Catherine the cuddles she would need after I was gone.

      My little princess now toddled about on dimpled legs, a delightful bundle of energy who giggled and chattered around my skirts all day. I could not imagine life without her, but there was no alternative. It was a beautiful spring day when, forcing a bright laugh and planting a last kiss on her soft baby cheek, I left Catherine playing with her favourite toy – one of my own childhood dolls. Once clear of the nursery, I became so blinded by tears that Jean-Michel had to lead me home.

      I had the consolation a month later of giving birth to my own healthy baby girl who, the Virgin be praised, breathed and sucked and wailed with gusto. We named her Alys after Jean-Michel’s mother, who adored her, having raised only boys herself. I loved her too of course but, although I suckled her and tended her every bit as scrupulously as I had Catherine, I admit that I probably never quite let her into the innermost core of my heart, where my royal cuckoo-chick had taken residence.

      To many I must seem an unnatural mother, but I looked at it like this: Alys had a father who thought the sun and moon rose in her eyes and two doting grandmothers. She didn’t need me the way Catherine did. As the summer passed and the days began to shorten once more, I thought constantly of my nursling. While dressing baby Alys and tucking her into her crib, I wondered who was doing this for Catherine. Was anyone cuddling her and singing her lullabies? Would they comb her hair and tell her stories? I saw her face in my dreams, heard her giggle in the breeze and her unsteady footsteps seemed to follow me about.

      No one understood how I felt except my mother, bless her, who said nothing but bought a cow and tethered it on the river bank behind the bakery ovens. When Alys was six months old, I weaned her onto cow’s milk and went back to the royal nursery. I know, I know – I am unchristian and unfeeling – but both the grandmothers were delighted to have a little girl to care for and I could no longer ignore my forebodings about Catherine.

      Dry-mouthed with apprehension, I approached the guards at the nursery tower. Suppose they did not recognise me, or were too honest to resist the bribes of pies and coin I had brought? Things had not changed in that respect however, and I was soon quietly entering the familiar upper chamber. But how she had changed, my little Catherine! Instead of the sturdy, merry-eyed toddler I had left, I found a moping moppet, thin, dull-eyed and melancholy with lank, tangled curls and a sad, pinched face. When she saw me she jumped straight down from the window-seat where she had been glumly fiddling with the old doll I had left her and ran towards me shouting, ‘Mette! Mette! My Mette!’ in a sweet, piping voice.

      My heart did somersaults as she flung herself into my arms and clung to my neck. I was astounded. How did she know my name? She had been too young to speak it when I left the nursery and surely no one else would have taught it to her. Yet there it was, spilling joyfully off her tongue. Tears streaming down my cheeks, I sank onto a bench and hugged her, murmuring endearments into her shamefully grubby little ear.

      I was brought down from the euphoria of reunion by a familiar voice observing with undisguised sarcasm, ‘Well this is a touching sight.’ Madame la Bonne had been sitting at a lectern under the window with Michele – I had, it seemed, interrupted her reading aloud in Latin – but now the governess moved across the room to stand over me wearing her usual disapproving expression. ‘Does this mean you have lost another baby, Guillaumette? Rather careless is it not?’

      I stood up and deposited Catherine gently on the floor, where she clung tightly to my skirt. I smiled at Michele. It was difficult to swallow my anger at this heartless enquiry, but I knew I must if I wanted to stay. ‘No, Madame. My daughter thrives with her grandmothers. Her name is Alys.’ To Michele I said, ‘I’m glad to see you are still here, Mademoiselle.’

      I exchanged meaningful looks with the solemn princess, who had grown significantly since I had last seen her. No one else appeared to have noticed this fact however, for her bodice was straining its stitches and her ankles protruded from the hem of her skirt.

      ‘We are all still here, Mette. Louis and Jean have a tutor now though.’

      ‘And your lesson should not be further interrupted,’ complained Madame le Bonne, glaring down her nose at me. ‘If you can keep Catherine quiet, you may take her over there for a while, Guillaumette.’ She pointed to the other window recess, where I had played so many games with the children in the past. ‘Princesse, let us continue your reading.’

      Michele dutifully returned her attention to the heavy leather-bound book on the lectern and I took Catherine’s hand and retreated gratefully to the other side of the room. There were two windows in this upper chamber and the depth of their recesses meant that one was almost out of sight of the other.

      Almost, but not quite; I could just see the governess sitting poker-faced throughout the next hour, doubtless pondering the implications of my arrival while she lent half an ear to Michele’s hesitant recital. Unbeknown to me, one of the ‘donkeys’ had run off with her varlet lover and my arrival had handed the governess a heaven-sent opportunity.

      At the end of the lesson she left Michele and approached us. To my dismay I felt Catherine instinctively shrink from her presence.

      ‘The younger children need a nursemaid, Guillaumette. You can start straight