‘Catherine my queen, my beautiful bride! I have galloped hard and eagerly to greet you!’
Her cheeks pink with shy pleasure, Catherine sank into a formal obeisance, as all of us around her had already done at the king’s approach. ‘You are well come, your grace,’ she said, tilting her head up to return his smile and expose the long, white column of her throat, where a pulse beat visibly, revealing her own heightened emotions. ‘I too have waited eagerly for you.’
He pulled her quickly to her feet and putting his arm around her shoulders led her through the porch into the great hall. ‘Then let us waste no time, my lady. I have much to show you.’
‘But you must take refreshment, my lord,’ she protested. ‘You have ridden hard.’
The king shook his head. ‘It is no distance from Warwick and they gave me food and drink there. No – let my men rest and eat, I have other plans for you and me. We have not much time before darkness falls.’
Inside the hall the king took me by surprise, addressing me directly. ‘Always nearby, Madame Lanière,’ he remarked with a smile. ‘Has the queen a warm cloak?’ He felt the velvet of the formal mantle Catherine wore and pulled a face. ‘This mantle is not suitable for our purpose. Be sure I recognise the gown however. We will do it justice, I promise you.’
Quite what he meant by that I hesitated to guess, but I bobbed my knee and hurried away to fetch the cloak. ‘And bring one for yourself, Madame,’ the king called after me. ‘A queen cannot do without her handmaid. Meet us at the Water Gate.’
I felt my own heart racing as I hurried to do his bidding wondering, as Catherine must have been, what surprise he had planned for her. I had to seek directions to the Water Gate because, like her, I was as yet unfamiliar with the castle lay-out but I found it quite close to the privy apartments, directly opposite a tunnel leading from the kitchens to a steeply sloping court behind the great hall undercroft. I guessed that supplies for the kitchen were brought by boat across the lake and carried via this route into the cellars. Passing through the gate I found steps leading down to a stone quay and a sailing boat moored alongside. I recognised it as the one we had seen approaching the castle the previous night.
King Henry was already handing Catherine carefully down into the boat. She was shivering and I hastily passed her fur-lined cloak to the king who leaped into the boat, sat down beside her and wrapped her swiftly in its folds. ‘You were just in time, Madame,’ he said, his teeth gleaming in the dying rays of the sun. ‘I think my lady’s blood was about to freeze.’
‘But now I am warm, my lord,’ Catherine murmured softly, ‘and intrigued to know where you are abducting me to at this darkling hour.’
King Henry did not answer her question, but put his arm around her and she snuggled down into his embrace, a smile lighting her face. He pulled the capacious hood of the cloak over her ears and over the gold nets and circlet which held her hair in place. ‘These are regally elegant,’ he said, tugging lightly at the nets, ‘but they will not keep you warm in the lake breezes. Cast off, boatman, and jump aboard, Robin.’ This last was addressed to the young squire who was holding the prow of the boat fast against the quay.
Catherine sat up in alarm. ‘And Mette. Do not forget Mette, my lord!’
The squire grinned and gave me his hand to steady me as I stepped aboard. There was a narrow plank seat set in front of the mast and, unbalanced, I sat down rather heavily, rocking the boat. ‘Your Mette is certainly aboard now, Catherine!’ cried the king with what I considered unnecessary mirth.
The boat nosed out into the lake, pushing the water aside like wrinkled black silk as the red sail filled and flapped in the light breeze, driving us south-east around the castle mound and towards the opposite shore. Little was visible there except the silhouette of an uneven line of trees standing out against the pearly grey sky. Having no fur-lined cloak or lover’s embrace to warm me, I thought a little enviously of the household, sitting down to their hot meal in the great hall and wondered what awaited us in the dark forest ahead. Behind me a murmured conversation was taking place between Catherine and the king, but the words were too indistinct to make out and anyway I assumed they were private. Suddenly I felt terribly lonely, marooned on that black lake with no idea where I was going and glumly certain that I would be the last to be rescued if a sudden storm blew up and threw us all into the water.
I should have had more faith in King Henry’s generalship. There was nothing random about this twilight escapade. Within a few minutes we rounded a low headland and there before us, set against the trees, stood a small castle with crenellated towers, a moat and a drawbridge and torches blazing spluttering greetings from the gatehouse walls.
‘Welcome to the Pleasance,’ said King Henry to Catherine. ‘This is my surprise for my beloved queen.’
Catherine was enchanted. I could hear it in her voice.
‘It is beautiful! It reminds me of the Vallon Vert.’
‘I thought it would,’ the king responded, sounding pleased. ‘Like our pavilion there, the Pleasance is timber, painted to look like stone. I had it built soon after I came to the throne. I wanted a place to retreat to.’ The boat grounded on a gently sloping shingle beach and Robin jumped over the side to keep it steady. ‘Come, there are fires to warm you and a meal has been prepared.’
The king followed his squire over the side and took Catherine in his arms to carry her to the shore. I tutted in disapproval as the train of her bridal gown trailed in the water but she was heedless, as well she might be, snug in the arms of her royal spouse. Clambering down the length of the boat, I was glad to see that it was possible to jump down onto the beach without getting my feet wet, for no one was offering to carry me.
Catherine was right when she said the place reminded her of the Vallon Vert. That had been her name for the little green valley where King Henry had had wooden pavilions built for himself and Catherine and for her parents, the King and Queen of France, to live in during the siege of Melun. It had been high summer and while they were staying in that cool oasis of shade, she and King Henry had discovered that real love might be possible between them.
Those summer pavilions had been little more than wooden tents, but The Pleasance was a more solid construction, designed as a miniature version of Kenilworth with glazed windows and graceful oriels giving views over the lake. King Henry told Catherine that, in the days before his marriage, he had used it to entertain his close friends, hunting in the surrounding forest and feasting in the hall. I assumed that these feasts had not been for men only, but no details were forthcoming. There was certainly plenty of space for amorous adventures. On a quick inspection of the facilities, I discovered several privy chambers in the towers behind the hall but for this romantic interlude, alone with his young queen, the king had ordered a large tester bed set up in the great hall, where the two of them could spend a few days alone together without interruption or distraction.
‘And no siege guns thundering away on the other side of the hill!’ Catherine pointed out to me with joy when the king had gone to check arrangements with the small band of castle servants seconded to The Pleasance. ‘Oh, Mette, is this not perfect? I had no idea that Henry was planning this idyll for us, which makes it so much the better!’
‘And look, Mademoiselle,’ I said, laying my hands on a harp which stood in the shadows beside the carved mantle-hood, beyond the reach of the fire’s heat.
‘A harp!’ she cried, dancing across the room to run her fingers over the strings, filling the air with a rush of liquid notes. ‘It must have been Henry’s mother’s, do you not think?’
‘What must have been my mother’s?’ The king strode back into the room and I hastened to melt into the shadows as he came up behind Catherine. ‘Oh, the harp – yes. She was always making music with some instrument or other. She taught me my first chords when I was three. She loved to sing to us.’ He put his arms