Her words were like balm to my soul. During those long years when I had secretly kept her image locked in my heart, she had also cherished mine. She was the child of my breast and I was the mother of her dreams. I could have crouched in that shadowy corner for ever, feeling her breath on my cheek, our hearts beating together.
‘Ah, you are
here
, Princesse. This lady said you had arrived.’
There were two figures outlined in the doorway against the light of the hall, but it was the aggrieved tones of the lady I would never forgive myself for mistaking for Catherine that shattered our idyll. Whoever she was, she came rushing forward, clearly horrified at finding the princess in close embrace with a servant. ‘For shame that this impudent woman should accost you, Mademoiselle! Let me have her removed. I fear she does not know her place.’
With her back to the door, Catherine rolled her eyes, gave my hand a reassuring squeeze and smothered a little giggle; that blessed giggle which had echoed in my head down the years. Then she stood up and turned to face the outraged newcomer. The real Princess Catherine was dressed more plainly – a drab hood and travelling mantle covering a dark robe – than the girl I had thought to be her, yet there was something in her carriage which made the haughty creature in her fashionable attire fall back.
‘On the contrary, she knows her place well. Her place is with me,’ my nursling told her, casting a hand back to encourage me to rise. ‘Her name is Guillaumette. Who are you?’
The haughty girl sank into a courtly obeisance; a skilled crouch which I presumed was of precisely the right depth to honour the daughter of the king. ‘Forgive me, Mademoiselle. My name is Bonne of Armagnac. The queen has appointed me your principal lady in waiting. She sent me to welcome you and to command you to attend her as soon as you have recovered from your journey.’
Catherine turned to me with an expression of exaggerated surprise. ‘Do you hear that, Mette?’ Her voice had suddenly acquired a crystal hardness which startled me. ‘My mother wishes to see me. There is a first time for everything.’ Then she stretched out her hand to the other girl, who still hovered uncertainly in the doorway, gesturing her forward. ‘Agnes, this is Guillaumette – my Mette about whom you have heard so much. Mette, this is my dear friend Agnes de Blagny, who has bravely agreed to accompany me to court. She and I have been close companions for the last four years, ever since Agnes came to Poissy abbey after she lost her mother.’
Agnes de Blagny was dressed like Catherine in a simple kirtle and over-mantle, with a plain white veil. I assumed it to be some sort of school habit worn by all the abbey pupils, but somehow Agnes did not wear it with the same easy elegance as her royal friend. She looked swamped and nervous, but she returned my smile with a shy one of her own.
‘There is no time to linger down here, Princesse!’ An older and more forceful female presence bustled into the room stirring dust off the flagstones with her flowing fur-lined mantle. ‘Court attire has been prepared for you. We will help you dress to meet the queen.’
Fittingly, it had been the Duchess of Bourbon who had fetched Catherine from Poissy, just as she had delivered her there nearly ten years before, and it was she who now made a brisk entrance, greeted Bonne of Armagnac graciously, gave me a dismissive glance, then swept all the young ladies off to Catherine’s new bedchamber, the room that had once been a day nursery but which was now transformed by silken cushions and hangings and some fabulous flower-strewn Flemish tapestries.
‘Do not go away, Mette,’ Catherine had whispered as she reluctantly left my side. Nothing could have made me leave, but I thought it prudent to keep a low profile, so I took up position on the stair just beyond the entrance to her bedchamber, carefully hidden by a turn in the spiral, and waited patiently, rendered impervious to the cold draughts by the knowledge that I was only a few steps from my life’s love.
When I next saw her, I might have been forgiven for not recognising her. She was encased in a weighty jewel-encrusted gown and mantle, her head crowned with gold and stiffened gauze. The stair was hardly wide enough to accommodate her voluminous skirts and the two noble ladies were too busy assisting her descent to notice me peering around the central pillar. The brief glimpse I had of Catherine’s face showed me rouged cheeks, stained lips and a wary, closed expression. In less time than it took a priest to say mass, they had turned my sweet girl into a painted doll. Agnes had been found a simpler court costume and scampered after the grand ladies like a little mouse. I did not think the timid school friend would make much of a mark at Queen Isabeau’s court.
I had plenty to occupy me as I waited for Catherine’s return. The chamber bore all the signs of a major upheaval. Her travelling clothes had been flung to the floor, brushes, combs and hair-pins were scattered on dressing-chests and pots of face-paints and powders had spattered polished surfaces. I set about restoring the chamber to the pristine condition in which I had left it and preparing for the return of what I was sure would be a drained and exhausted Catherine, lighting candles and setting glowing coals in a hot box to warm the bed. Guessing (correctly as it turned out) that the queen would have dined and would not think to offer Catherine any refreshment, I also set some sweet wine and milk to curdle near the fire and put out some wafers. As I worked, I tried to imagine what the conversation would be like between mother and daughter, meeting as strangers.
The candles had burned down several inches when a noise like birds twittering roused me from my sentinel stool. It was the high-pitched chatter of excited young ladies drifting up the stair and I swiftly retreated to my previous hiding place. Catherine’s retinue had obviously expanded and fortunately, as they tripped into the bedchamber, they left the door open, so I was able to hear Bonne of Armagnac’s authoritative voice begin allocating various tasks concerning Catherine’s toilette.
‘With your permission, Mademoiselle, Marie and Jeanne will help you to undress whilst I secure your robes and jewels …’
Catherine’s voice broke in, low and sweet but firm enough to silence her attendant. ‘No, Mademoiselle Bonne. You do not have my permission. What I would like you to do is call Guillaumette. She is the one I need to help me.’
‘Do you mean your tiring-woman, Mademoiselle?’ Bonne protested. ‘A menial cannot be trusted to handle your highness’ court dress or safeguard your jewels! That is a task for someone of rank.’
I smiled at the steely determination audible behind Catherine’s deceptively mild reply. ‘Mette is not “a menial”, as you put it, she is my nurse. When I was a child she was trusted with my life. I’m sure she can be trusted now with a few rags and baubles. Summon Guillaumette if you please.’
I heard my name called from the doorway and waited a timely minute before responding. Meanwhile Catherine was gently attempting to mollify her affronted lady-in-waiting. ‘You are older and wiser than I, Mademoiselle Bonne, but I suspect that even you have a nurse who cared for you in childhood and who knows all your little ways …’
‘Well, yes,’ Bonne of Armagnac admitted reluctantly, ‘but I thought …’ Her voice trailed away uncertainly.
‘… that mine would have long gone?’ Catherine suggested gently. ‘But you see my faithful Mette has not gone. She is here …’ As indeed I was, entering the salon exactly on cue and dropping humbly to my knee inside the door, head bowed to deflect the angry glare of Mademoiselle Bonne. ‘… and I have decided that she and she alone will have full charge in my bedchamber.’
I had to pinch myself to remember that she was not yet fourteen. I sent up a silent prayer of thanks to St Catherine, for it was surely she who had inspired this combination of sweetness and obstinacy in her namesake.
Peeping under the edge of my coif I watched Catherine stifle a yawn and say wearily to the assembled bevy of young ladies, ‘I am very tired. There will be much to do tomorrow. The queen seems to have commissioned half the master-craftsmen in Paris to fit me out for court life and I shall need all your advice on the latest fashions. So now I will bid you goodnight and I know you will show kindness and assistance to my friend Agnes de Blagny who, as you know, will be one of your number.’
I felt quite sorry for the timorous Agnes as she was carried off by four court damsels who obviously found the prospect of a day spent picking clothes and jewels so enchanting that their excited chatter died only gradually away down the stair. Bonne of Armagnac remained behind however, sidling up to Catherine and dropping her voice to a confidential murmur. I tactfully retired to the hearth to re-heat the curdled posset, but I have sharp ears and easily caught the gist of her speech.
‘Coming from the convent, Mademoiselle, you will need more than just advice on jewels and fashions. The ways of the court are complex. It is easy to make mistakes. The queen trusts me to help and guide you, just as my father helps and guides the dauphin.’
‘No doubt she does.’ There was a pause as Catherine gazed steadily at Bonne before continuing with the kind of regal assurance that I now believe cannot be taught. ‘And you may be sure that I will be as grateful to you as the dauphin is to your father, Mademoiselle. But I must remind you that the queen made an announcement at court tonight which you seem to have forgotten. As the only remaining unmarried daughter of the king, I am to have the courtesy title of Madame of France. I feel certain that you of all people will not want to continue making an error of protocol by addressing me as Mademoiselle. Now I wish you a very good night – and please leave the key to the strong-box.’
It was only later I learned that the key in question was tantamount to Bonne’s badge of office. It hung from her belt on a jewelled chatelaine and for a moment I thought she was going to refuse to hand it over. Then she unhooked it abruptly and dropped it on the table beside Catherine.
‘As you wish, princesse. Good night.’
‘Good night, Mademoiselle Bonne,’ replied Catherine, her painted court face unsmiling beneath the ornate headdress.
The Count of Armagnac’s daughter made one of her precise courtesies and stalked out, casting a baleful glance at me and leaving the door deliberately open. As I obeyed Catherine’s mute signal to close it, I heard the lady’s footsteps halt at the curve of the stairs and guessed that she had paused in the hope of catching some of our conversation. With a grim little smile I ensured that the only sound that carried to her ears was the firm thud of wood on wood.
‘Am I to address you as Madame then, Mademoiselle?’ I asked Catherine, confusing myself.
To my delight she giggled again. ‘Well, you certainly do not need to address me as both, Mette!’ she exclaimed. After a moment, she said, ‘I think I would rather you stuck to Mademoiselle. I seem to remember that when you called me a little Madame you were usually cross with me.’
‘I am sure I was never cross with you, Madamoiselle,’ I assured her. ‘You were always a good child, and you are scarcely more than a child still.’
She raised a quizzical eyebrow at me.
‘You may not know, Mademoiselle,’ I said, crossing to the hearth to pour the warm posset into a silver hanap, ‘that while you were away there was much political upheaval and at one time the Duke of Burgundy ordered a number of the queen’s ladies to be imprisoned in the Châtelet. Mademoiselle of Armagnac was among them. It is said that their gaolers abused them and I know that they were mauled and mocked by the mob on the way there. She can have no love for commoners like me.’
Catherine gazed at me steadily for several moments before responding. ‘See how useful you are to me already, Mette,’ she remarked. ‘Who else would have told me that?’
I placed the hanap on the table beside her and began removing the pins that fastened her heavy headdress.
As I lifted away the headdress, she briefly massaged an angry red weal where the circlet had dug into her brow, then she cupped her hands around the hanap and took a sip. ‘Now I will tell you something that
you
may not know, Mette. Mademoiselle Bonne has recently become betrothed to the Duke of Orleans, he who was supposed to marry Michele but ended up marrying our older sister Isabelle. I went to their wedding when I was five but unfortunately she died two years later in childbirth. I prayed for her soul, but I did not weep because, as you know, I hardly knew her. The queen was at pains to tell me all about Bonne’s betrothal this evening. Apparently Louis does not allow his wife Marguerite to come to court because he hates her for being the Duke of Burgundy’s daughter, so when Bonne marries Charles of Orleans, she will be third in order of precedence after the queen and myself.’
Fast though news spread in the palace, this gossip had not yet reached the servants’ quarters. The present Duke of Orleans was the king’s nephew, heir to the queen’s murdered lover. His Orleanist cause had benefited greatly from the Count of Armagnac’s military and political support, and this marriage would be the pay-back, bringing Bonne’s family into the magic royal circle. Mademoiselle Bonne was definitely a force to be reckoned with and I feared that, by showing me favour, Catherine had already irretrievably soured relations with her.
I bent to unfasten the heavy jewelled collar she was wearing and she put down the posset and raised her hand to my face, pushing under my coif to trace the two puckered scars that ran from cheekbone to jaw.
‘The Duke of Burgundy gave you these,’ she said softly, ‘when you were defending me. And my lady Bonne dares to question your trustworthiness!’
‘I am surprised you remember, Mademoiselle,’ I said. ‘You were so young.’
‘How could I forget?’ she cried. ‘Burgundy’s black face still haunts me.’
‘You should not let it,’ I admonished, though I suffered similarly myself. ‘You have the queen’s protection now. It seems that nothing is too good for her youngest daughter.’
Catherine gave a mirthless laugh. ‘A change from the old days, eh, Mette? Do you know, this evening I could not recall my mother’s face?’ She paused reflectively. ‘Yet I should have remembered her eyes, at least, for they are the most extraordinary colour – pale blue-green, almost the colour of turquoise – very striking. I knelt, I took her hand and kissed it as I had been told to do and she raised me and kissed my cheek.’