I saw no need to hesitate in my reply. ‘Why, to King Henry of England I suppose.’
Her brow wrinkled in alarm. ‘Surely not. He is old! Besides, does he not have a queen already?’
My heart lurched at the sight of her, tousle-haired and doe-eyed in the soft light from the wax candles. Whichever king or duke it was who got her would win a prize indeed.
I began to unlace her gown. ‘You have been in the convent a long time, Mademoiselle. The old King of England died more than a year ago. The new king, his son Henry, is said to be young, chivalrous and handsome – and in need of a wife.’
‘Young, chivalrous and handsome,’ Catherine echoed, rising to discard the voluminous jewel-encrusted court robe. I gathered it up with a grunt of effort and I did not envy her the wearing of it. ‘What do you call young?’ she queried ruefully, plucking at the ties of her chemise. ‘By my reckoning he must be at least six and twenty. Twice my age! That does not seem young to me.’
As she spoke, her chemise fell to the floor. A sumptuous velvet bed gown had been provided for her use and I held it out for her, marvelling at how slim and sleek the limbs that I remembered rounded and dimpled had become. Hugging the robe closed, she ran her hands over the silky fabric. ‘This is beautiful – so soft and rich. The nuns would think it enough to put my soul in danger,’ she remarked.
‘Seeing you without it would put King Henry’s soul in danger!’ I countered with a twinkle.
This brought a girlish blush to her cheek and I reflected that nubile though she now was, she was still little more than a child. What could she know, fresh from her convent, of the power of her own beauty or the strength of male lust? Mademoiselle Bonne was right; Catherine did need a wise and steady hand to guide her, but I feared the jealous, opinionated daughter of Armagnac was not the right one for the job.
With her new-found indulgence towards ‘the most beautiful of my daughters’, the queen promised Catherine anything she wanted and it turned out that what she wanted most, God bless her, was me. The nuns of Poissy had taught her Greek and Latin and the Rule of St Dominic, but in their strict regime of lessons, bells and prayers there had been no room for love or laughter and, instinctively, she knew where she might find both.
So, in order to keep me close, she gave me two rooms on the top floor of her tower. I do not believe she can have remembered, and I never discussed it with her, but one of them was the small turret chamber where I had lit those secret fires for her as a baby, and the other, the larger chamber adjoining it, was where the infants and the donkeys had once slept. This one had a hearth and chimneypiece, a window overlooking the river and in the thickness of the outer wall, much to my joy, a latrine. In the past this floor of the tower had been used as a guardroom for the arbalesters who patrolled the battlements and so it was accessible from the curtain wall-walk, which meant that once the sentries got to know them, my family would be able to come and go without passing through Catherine’s private quarters.
‘You will need to have your family around you, Mette,’ she told me earnestly. ‘I would not like to think that being with me took you away from your own children.’ It was no wonder I loved her. I swear there was not another royal or courtier in the palace who would have given a second’s thought to the family life of a servant.
Originally the accommodation had been ear-marked for those of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting yet to be appointed and they were rooms that Bonne of Armagnac had counted on filling with some of her own favourites, so when she heard that I was to be given them, she went straight to the queen’s master of the household and complained that I was unsuitable for such preferment and would be a pernicious influence on Princess Catherine. Me – a pernicious influence on the daughter of the king! I had certainly come up in the world. It would have been funny if it had not been so alarming. I had seen what happened to servants who offended their lords and masters. I did not want to end up shackled in the Châtelet or even to become one of the mysteriously ‘disappeared’.
Luckily Lord Offemont, the wily old diplomat who ran the queen’s household, understood only too well the jealousies and machinations of court life and managed to mollify Mademoiselle Bonne with some even more desirable accommodation for her protégées, but the episode further strained relations between me and the future Duchess of Orleans.
When Catherine heard of Alys’ sewing talent, she immediately arranged for her also to be transferred to her ever-growing household, which meant that instead of endlessly hemming the queen’s sheets and chemises, my nimble-fingered little daughter found herself tending the princess’ new wardrobe, sewing fashionable trimmings onto beautiful gowns which, needless to say, she loved.
Ah, those gowns! A score of them were ordered, all truly fabulous; designed and constructed by the best tailors using gleaming Italian brocades, embroidered velvets and jewel-coloured damasks, the hems of their trailing sleeves intricately dagged into long tear-drops or edged with sumptuous Russian furs. Despite their constant complaints about unpaid bills, the craftsmen of Paris clamoured for the patronage of this new darling of Queen Isabeau’s court. Tailors, hatters, hosiers, shoemakers, glovers and goldsmiths flocked to Catherine’s tower, filling the ground-floor ante-room with their wares and spilling out into the cloister until it began to resemble a street-market where the fashion-mad young ladies-in-waiting fell over each other to handle lustrous silks and gauzes, try soft Cordovan leather slippers and exclaim over exquisite jewelled collars, brooches and buckles. It was these ladies who decided which craftsmen and traders should be invited to present their wares personally to the royal client and I soon learned that their decisions were not made on merit alone. Even I was promised a silver belt-buckle if I would clear the path to Catherine’s door but, although as one of Catherine’s key-holders I had recently taken to wearing a belt, I angrily refused the offer and roundly scolded the offender.
My intimate relationship with the princess was a constant irritation to Bonne of Armagnac and flashpoints occurred almost daily. I tended to keep a close, motherly eye on my chick, whereas Bonne’s attitude was more didactic, offering copious advice and instruction but often leaving Catherine to flounder in awkward situations.
Entering the salon at the height of the fashion frenzy, I found the princess cowering in her canopied chair surrounded by a bevy of tradesmen all gabbling at once and thrusting samples of their wares in her face. For a young girl only a few days out of the convent, it was a distressing situation and, seeing Catherine close to tears, I inwardly cursed Bonne and her silly court creatures, conspicuous by their absence, being unable to resist the temptations displayed in the cloister.
‘Shame on you, masters,’ I protested, pushing the men aside. ‘The princess will make no decisions while you rant at her like that!’ I bobbed a knee before Catherine’s chair. ‘Forgive me, highness, but it is time to prepare for court. Have I your permission to clear the room?’
‘Yes, thank you, Mette,’ she murmured and I shooed the importunate craftsmen through the door, still trying vainly to cry their wares. Catherine was visibly shaken, her hands white-knuckled on the arms of her chair. ‘That was horrible!’ she exclaimed. ‘I did not know what to do. They just kept coming. I feel so foolish.’
I was about to point out that she should not have been left without support when Bonne arrived looking flustered. Seeing me, her expression changed abruptly.
‘Oh, it is you,’ she said coldly. ‘The masters said some wimpled hag had dismissed them.’ Pointedly turning her back on me, she addressed Catherine in a more circumspect tone. ‘Could you make no choices, Madame? It will be hard to dress you adequately for court if no accessories are selected. Did the masters offend you in some way?’
‘Yes,’ replied Catherine, lifting her chin and fixing Bonne with a suddenly dry and steely gaze. ‘There were too many in the room and I should not have been left alone with them. Fortunately Mette came to my aid.’
Colour