The Agincourt Bride Read online

  ‘What are we doing here?’ I hissed to my mother, stirred at last into showing some interest in our circumstances.

  ‘Not being fed, obviously,’ she complained. ‘You would have thought they could spare a bit of pudding!’ Huffily she sank onto a solitary bench under the window and arranged her grey woollen skirt neatly around her. ‘Come and sit down, Mette, and compose yourself. You want to make a good impression.’

  Gingerly I lowered myself onto the bench beside her. It was not many hours since I’d given birth and to sit down was painful. ‘Impression?’ I echoed. ‘Who should I make an impression on?’ My breasts throbbed and I was becoming distinctly nervous.

  ‘On Madame la Bonne, who runs the royal nursery.’ Now that she had got me here, my mother risked divulging more information. ‘She needs a wet-nurse for the new princess.’

  ‘A wet-nurse!’ I echoed, wincing as I recoiled along the hard bench. ‘You mean … no, Ma! I cannot give suck to a royal baby.’

  My mother drew herself up, both chins jutting indignantly from the tight frame of her goodwife’s wimple. ‘And why not, may I ask? Your milk is as good as anyone’s. Better than most probably, for you are young and well-nourished. Think yourself lucky. If they take you, you will have drawn the top prize. It might have been a butcher’s baby or a tax collector’s brat.’

  I opened my mouth to protest that a baker’s daughter could hardly despise a butcher’s baby but swallowed my words as the door opened to admit a thin, erect woman of middle age and height, dressed in a dark wine-coloured gown with sweeping fur-lined sleeves. The eaves of her black gable-headdress shadowed a pinched, rat-like face and she looked so unlike anyone’s idea of a children’s nurse that my mother and I were both struck dumb. We stood up.

  ‘Is this the girl?’ the woman asked bluntly. Her lip curled. ‘Ah yes, I can see it is.’

  Following her disdainful gaze, I glanced down and saw that damp milk-stains were beginning to spread over the front of my bodice. Shame and grief sent fresh tears coursing down my cheeks.

  ‘What is your name?’ demanded the fur-sleeved lady but any reply I might have made was forestalled as she grabbed me by the arm, pulled me under the beam of light from the window and wrenched my mouth open, peering into it.

  My mother spoke for me. ‘Guillaumette. My daughter’s name is Guillaumette.’ She frowned at the crude treatment I was receiving but was too over-awed to object.

  Madame la Bonne grunted and released my jaw. ‘Teeth seem good,’ she observed, aiming her rodent nose at my damp bodice and taking a long investigative sniff. ‘And she smells clean. How old is she?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ replied my mother, trying to edge her ample frame between me and my tormentor. ‘It was her first child.’

  ‘And it is dead, I hope? We do not want any common nursling bringing disease into the royal nursery.’ My instantly renewed sobs appeared to convince her of this for she nodded with satisfaction. ‘Good. We will take her on trial. Five sous a week and her bed and board. Any sign of ague or milk fever and she is out.’ Before my mother could question these terms, the dragon-lady turned to address me directly. ‘You should stop snivelling, girl, or your milk will dry up and you will be no use to anyone. The queen was delivered at the hour of sext and the princess needs suck at once. I will send someone to collect you.’

  Not waiting to hear whether or not her offer was accepted, Madame la Bonne swept out of the room. My mother stared after her, shaking her head, but the mention of five sous a week had struck a chord. Although my eyes were blurred with tears, I caught the commercial glint in hers as she calculated how much this would add to the family coffers.

  ‘We had best say goodbye then,’ she said gruffly, kissing my wet cheeks. ‘It is a good opportunity, Mette. Blow your nose and make the most of it. Remember Jean-Michel is not far away. You will be able to visit him between feeds.’ Gently, she wiped away my tears with the edge of her veil. ‘It will be hard at first but who knows where it could lead? You will get used to it and the baby needs you. You heard the lady.’

  I nodded, barely comprehending. When another liveried servant arrived to take me away I followed him without a backward glance. My head was spinning and my breasts felt as if they would burst. Relief from that piercing ache would be welcome, no matter what followed.

  They put the baby in my arms and unlaced my bodice. I had no idea what to do but the midwife was there, an ancient crone who must have witnessed a thousand births, and she showed me how to hold the tiny bundle so that my oozing nipple was available to the seeking mouth. At first the infant could not clamp the slippery teat between her hard gums and she yelled with frustration while fresh tears poured down my face.

  ‘I cannot do it!’ I cried. ‘She does not like me.’

  The midwife wheezed with amusement. ‘What does she know about liking?’ she said, bringing the baby’s head and my breast together like a pair of ripe peaches. ‘All she wants is to suck. She is a little poppet this one, healthy as a milkmaid and strong as a cobweb. Just you sit quiet now and wait for her to latch on. She will. Oh yes she will!’

  She did. Very soon she was fastened to my nipple like a pink leech and I could feel the painful pressure dropping. I stared down at the swaddled crown of her head and noticed a tiny wisp of pale gold hair had slipped between the linen bands. Otherwise, she seemed anonymous, almost inhuman, like one of the gargoyles on the roof of our church. I shivered at the sudden notion that she might be a creature of the devil. Supposing I had been foist with a succubus?

  I closed my inflamed eyes and took a deep breath. Of course she was not a demon, I told myself firmly. She was a baby, a gift of God, a morsel of human life that was strangely and avidly attached to my body.

  Gradually, I began to feel a steady and reassuring rhythm in the mysterious process of giving suck, a regular swishing sound like the soft hiss made by the surge of the tide on the Seine mudflats. I sensed that the child and I were sharing a universal pulse, joined together in the ebb and flow of life. And as my milk flowed, my tears dried. I did not stop grieving for my lost son but I no longer wept.

  2

  How can we ever know what life has in store for us? My new situation nearly ended as abruptly as it had begun, because the next morning some of my breast milk oozed onto the white silk chemise that had been pulled over the baby’s swaddling in preparation for her baptism. I trembled, awaiting the full power of the rat-woman’s wrath, but luckily the stain was quickly hidden under the folds of an embroidered satin christening robe and then, crowned with a tiny coif of lace and seed-pearls, the baby was carried off to the queen’s chapel. Later we were told she had been baptised Catherine after the virgin martyr of Alexandria, whose staunch Christian faith had not even been broken by torture on the wheel.

  In the beginning I did not really have much to do with Catherine, except to let her suck whenever she cried for the breast. Madame la Bonne insisted on attending to the swaddling herself. She changed it every morning, convinced that only she knew the secret of how to make the royal limbs grow straight. Two dim-witted girls were in charge of washing and dressing and rocking the cradle, which they did with scant care or attention, it seemed to me. After a few days the governess must have decided I could stay, for my straw mattress and Catherine’s crib were carried into a small turret room, separated by a thick oak door from the main nursery. I was told that this arrangement was in order to prevent the baby’s cries waking the other children but I was far from happy. Terrified of the responsibility of looking after a royal baby alone throughout the night, I became jaded from lack of sleep, home-sick and heart-sick for my own lost son. Yet none of this seemed to affect my milk, which flowed profuse and steady, like the Seine beneath the turret window.

  My experience of royal nurseries was nil but even so this one struck me as distinctly odd. Here we were in the palace of reputedly the most profligate queen in Christendom and yet, apart from the pearl-encrusted christening robe which had been swiftly borne away for s
afekeeping, I could find no evidence of luxury or wealth. There were no fur-lined cribs or silver rattles or chests full of toys, and the rooms, located in a separate tower to the rear of the queen’s house, were cold and bare. Although my turret had a small grate and a chimney, there were no fires even to warm the newborn child, no hangings to keep out the autumn draughts and only smoky tapers and oil lamps to light the lengthening nights. Food came up from the queen’s kitchen, but it was nothing like the fare I had seen on the day of my arrival. No succulent roasts or glistening puddings for us; we ate potage and bread messes, washed down with green wine or buttermilk. Occasionally there was some cheese or a chunk of bacon but rarely any fresh meat or fish. We might have been living in a monastery rather than a palace.

  The reason was not hard to find, for in contrast with her name, there was very little that was good about Madame la Bonne. I quickly understood that her first concern was not the welfare of the royal children but the wealth of the royal governess. I was to learn that any savings she could make on the nursery budget went straight into her own pocket, which was why she had employed me. A courtier’s wife would have been more appropriate as wet-nurse for a princess, but a lady of rank would not only command higher pay, she would also have powerful friends, and Madame la Bonne’s plans and schemes depended on no one with any connection to power or authority ever coming near the place; none ever visited, not the master of the household or the queen’s secretary or chancellor, or even one of their clerks and certainly not the queen herself.

  As well as Catherine, there were three other royal children in residence. The oldest was Princess Michele, a solemn, rather plain-looking girl of six who was always trying to keep the peace between her two younger brothers, the Princes Louis and Jean. Louis was the dauphin, the unlikely heir to the throne, a skinny, tow-headed four-year-old with a pale complexion and a chronic cough whose clothes were grubby and too small. However, I observed that he had a quick brain and an active imagination, which often led him into mischief. His brother Jean was a bull-headed terror, a ruffian even at three, darker and sturdier than his brother and more headstrong. You could be sure that if Louis started some mischief, Jean would continue it beyond a joke. After I caught him dropping a spider into Catherine’s crib, I decided to keep a very close eye on Monsieur Jean! I knew that if any harm came to the baby, the blame would instantly be laid on me, not on her infant brother.

  Being an only child, I had never had much to do with other children and yet, to my surprise, having been thrown into close contact with these as-good-as-motherless youngsters, I found I knew instinctively how to handle them. Oddly, I felt no similar instinct when it came to Catherine. I could not help nursing a certain resentment that she was alive while my own baby was dead and I could not see past those horrible swaddling bands, which seemed to squash all the character out of her. Sometimes it felt as if I was suckling a sausage. Besides, I grew restless just sitting around waiting to open my bodice, so in between Catherine’s feeds I started playing with the older children.

  I could see that the boys’ naughtiness sprang from boredom rather than wickedness. They were bright and spirited but the two giggling nursemaids were too busy gossiping or sneaking out to meet their lovers to have much time for their charges. They would plonk food on the table but they rarely brought water to wash the children and never talked or played with them. Madame la Bonne had pared their wages to the minimum and, like my mother always said, ‘If you pay turnips you get donkeys’.

  To start with, the children were wary of me but soon Michele opened up, being touchingly grateful for some attention. A slight, mousy little girl, she had fine, dirty blonde hair that was always in a tangle because Louis had thrown the only hairbrush out of the window in a tantrum and Madame la Bonne had chosen not to replace it. Although outwardly placid, she was terribly insecure, shying at raised voices, assuming slights where there were none and fearful that at any moment she might be whisked away to marry some prince in a foreign land. When I tried to reassure her that she was too young for that, she blinked her solemn sea-green eyes and shook her head.

  ‘No, Mette.’ My full name, Guillaumette, was too much for young tongues to master. ‘My sister Isabelle was only eight when she went away to England.’

  I remembered that departure. I had watched Princess Isabelle being paraded through the streets of Paris at the time of her proxy marriage to King Richard of England, a tiny doll-like figure propped up in a litter, weighed down with furs and jewels, and it had never occurred to me or to any of us in that noisy crowd of citizens how frightened she must have been, being carted off to a strange country to live with a man old enough to be her grandfather. And what had become of that little bride? An English lord named Bolingbroke had stolen King Richard’s throne and his abandoned child-queen was still languishing somewhere across the Sleeve, her future uncertain. I realised that Michele was right to be frightened.

  The boys took longer to respond to my overtures. Prince Louis’ insecurities sprang from a different source but were equally deep-seated. He was haunted by a ghost. At the start of the year his older brother Charles had died of a sudden fever and the whole of France had plunged into mourning. Unlike his younger siblings, the nine-year-old dauphin had been doted on by Queen Isabeau, kept beside her at court, given his own household and showered with gifts and praise. He was shown off to every high-ranking visitor and proclaimed ‘the glorious future of France’! Even my down-to-earth mother had joined the crowds cheering him in the streets, raining blessings on his bright golden head.

  It was the sweating sickness that carried him off. One day he was riding his pony through the city and the next he was dead, consumed by a raging fever. Queen Isabeau collapsed and the king succumbed to one of his devilish fits. I suppose during the months that followed, the new dauphin might have expected to be whisked off to the life of luxury and privilege that his brother had enjoyed, but this did not happen and so, every time he was reprimanded or denied something, Louis would throw a tantrum, hurling himself to the ground shrieking ‘I am the dauphin! I am the dauphin!’ This was always a source of great entertainment for Jean, who would squat down nearby and watch with undisguised glee as Louis drummed his heels and screeched. I never saw him try to comfort his brother. Even in infancy Jean was an odd, isolated boy.

  Madame la Bonne had devised her particular way of ensuring that the sound of Louis’ tantrums did not carry outside the nursery. The first time I heard his blood-curdling yells, I rushed in panic to the big day-room and was horrified to see the governess lift up the screaming little boy, bundle him into a large empty coffer, close the lid and sit on it.

  ‘Madame, really you cannot …!’ I protested.

  ‘Presumptuous girl!’ she snapped. ‘Be silent. You are here to give suck, nothing more. I advise you to keep your mouth shut and your bodice open or another wet-nurse will be found.’

  Beneath her skinny rump Louis’ muffled cries dwindled into whimpers and I was forced to retreat to my turret. It was not until much later, when I was convinced he must be dead, that the governess let the little boy out. Peeping cautiously around the door I saw him emerge trembling and gasping and run to a far corner to press his tear-stained face against the cold stone wall. In his terror he had wet himself but no one offered him dry hose. No wonder he always stank. The governess caught me peeking and gave me another warning glare, so I fled.

  A month or so after her birth, Catherine started sleeping for longer periods and I was able to risk my first visit to the stables. Always a man of action rather than words, Jean-Michel greeted me shyly and immediately led me up the ladder to the hay-loft and began shifting bundles of fodder to create a private corner for us, away from the prying eyes of his fellow-grooms. The rows of horses in the stalls below radiated warmth and although at first we talked awkwardly and strangely, it wasn’t long before we were exchanging eager kisses. The result was predictable. I am sure I don’t need to go into detail. I was fifteen and he was eighteen and afte
r all we were married … it wasn’t natural for us to remain sad and celibate.

  Afterwards we talked some more, carefully avoiding the subject of our dead baby. I told Jean-Michel how Madame la Bonne’s greed made life so cold and comfortless in the royal nursery. By now it was early December and the nights were freezing in the turret chamber. Being a kind-hearted lad, he exclaimed indignantly about this and the next time I came he presented me with some bundles of firewood. ‘Smuggle them in under your shawl. No one will see the smoke if you burn it after dark,’ he suggested.

  So when Catherine next woke in the small hours, making restless hungry sounds, I lit a taper with my flint, pulled straw from my mattress for kindling, piled some sticks on top and set the taper to them. As I did so I noticed that her swaddling had come loose and a strip of damp linen was dangling down. On an impulse I pulled it and all at once I could feel her legs begin to kick. In the light of the fire I could see pleasure blaze in her deep-blue eyes and I made an instant decision.

  I pulled my bed in front of the hearth, spread the blanket over it and laid Catherine down, eagerly removing the rest of the offensive linen bands. I prayed that no one would take notice of her squalls of protest as I used the icy water from my night-jug to clean her soiled body, and soon the warmth of the flames silenced her cries and she began to stretch and kick, luxuriating in the dancing firelight. Her little arms waved and I bent to smile and coo at her, blowing on her neck and belly to tickle her soft, peachy skin so that she squirmed and burbled with delight.

  The previous summer, walking among the wildflowers on the riverbank, I had watched entranced as a butterfly emerged into the sunshine, the full glory of its multicoloured wings gradually unfurling before my eyes. In those first moments by the fire Catherine reminded me of that butterfly. For the first time her big blue eyes became sparkling pools, glowing with life, and her soft mop of flaxen hair, for so long flattened and confined, began to spring and curl. Then, as I bent low and whispered soft endearments into her ear, I was rewarded with a wide, gummy smile.