The Forbidden Queen. Anne O'Brien

whispered in my mind, a voice of good but brutal sense: He does not love you, so there is nothing to say. I held tight to the emotions that rioted nauseously within my ribcage.

      ‘Then stay with me tonight,’ I said before my courage could die. ‘If we are to be parted, stay with me now.’

      ‘I have letters to write to France.’

      I swallowed the disappointment that filled my mouth. I would not ask again. At that moment I knew that I would never ask again.

      ‘You must make ready to leave at daybreak,’ he said.

      ‘I will do whatever you wish,’ I replied, weakly compliant. But I knew in my heart that there was no changing his mind.

      ‘You will prefer it.’ Henry stood. You will prefer it, I thought.

      ‘I will be ready. Henry…’ He halted at the door and looked back. ‘You don’t really think I would rejoice in my brother’s victory, do you?’

      For a moment he looked as if he was considering the matter and my heart lurched. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you would. I know you have no love for the Dauphin. And I think you have little interest in politics and what goes on in the war.’

      I forced myself to show no reaction, no resentment. ‘So you don’t condemn me for my birth and past loyalties.’

      ‘No. How should I? I knew the complications when I took you in marriage. Don’t worry about it, Katherine. Your position as my wife is quite secure.’ He opened the door. ‘And will become even stronger when you give birth to England’s heir.’

      And he closed the door at his back, reinforcing the reason he had come to me when his heart was heavy with grief for his brother. Not for comfort, or to spend a final hour with me, but to get a child on me before he parcelled me off to London so that I might sit in the vast rooms of Westminster with the heir to England growing inside me.

      A bleak fury raged within me, a desolation so deep that I should ever have thought that he could love me. He did not. He never had, he never would. Even affection seemed to be beyond what he could give me. He could play the chivalrous prince and woo me with fine words, he could possess my body with breathtaking thoroughness, but his emotions were not involved. His heart was as coldly controlled as his outer appearance.

      And—the anger burned even brighter—he had judged me to be nothing more than an empty-headed idiot, incapable of comprehending the difficulties of his foreign policies or the extent of his own ambitions. I was an ill-informed woman who had little wit and could not be expected to take an interest. I may have been ill informed when he first met me, but I had made it a priority to ask and learn. I was no longer ignorant and knew very well the scope of Henry’s vision to unite England and France under one strong hand.

      It was during that lonely night that I accepted that, even as I grieved for Henry’s loss of a beloved brother, my marriage was a dry and arid place. Why had it taken me so long to see what must have been obvious to the whole court?

      I rose at dawn, my mind clear. If all Henry wanted was an obedient, compliant wife who made no demands on him, then that was what he would have. Not waiting for Guille, I began to pack my clothes into their travelling coffers. Obedient and compliant? I would be exactly what he wanted, and after Mass and a brief repast, both celebrated alone—Henry was elsewhere—I stepped into the courtyard where my travelling litter already awaited me. Before God, he was thorough.

      It crossed my mind that the accounts of taxes paid and unpaid might prove a more beguiling occupation than wishing me God speed, but there he was, waiting beside the palanquin, apparently giving orders to the sergeant-at-arms who would lead my escort. It did nothing to thaw out my heart. Of course he was conscious of my safety: after last night—might I not be carrying the precious heir to England and France?

      ‘Excellent,’ he said, turning as he heard the brisk clip of my shoes on the paving. ‘You will make good time.’

      My smile was perfectly performed. ‘I would not wish to be tardy, my lord.’

      ‘Your accommodations will be arranged for you in Stamford and Huntingdon. Your welcome is assured.’

      ‘I expect they will.’ I held out my hand. Henry kissed my fingers and helped me into the litter, beckoning for more cushions and rugs for my comfort.

      ‘I will be in London at the beginning of May, when Parliament will meet.’

      ‘I will look for you then, my lord.’

      The muscles of my face ached with the strain of smiling for so long, and I really could not call him Henry.

      At a signal we moved off. I did not look back. I would not wish to know if Henry stayed to see my departure or was already walking away before my entourage had passed from the courtyard. And thus I travelled quite magnificently with a cavalcade of armed outriders, servants, pages and damsels. The people of England flocked to see their new Queen even though the King was not at her side.

      In Stamford and Huntingdon and Cambridge I was made to feel most welcome, I was feasted and entertained most royally, my French birth proving not to be a matter for comment. It should have been a series of superb triumphal entries, but rather a deluge of rejection invaded every inch of my body. I meant nothing to Henry other than as a vessel to carry my precious blood to our son, so that in his veins would mingle the right to wear both English and French crowns. I should have accepted it from the very beginning. I had been foolish beyond measure to live for so long with false hopes. But no longer.

      My naïvety, constantly seeking Henry’s love for me when it did not exist, was a thing of the past. His heart was a foreign place to me, his soul encased in ice.

      Why had I not listened to Michelle? It would have saved me heartbreak if I had. And although I knew from past experience that tears would bring no remedy, yet still I wept. My final acknowledgement of my place in Henry’s life chilled me to the bone.