What was this? I frowned at the unaccustomed formality. ‘Henry—has he then recovered? Do I go to join him?’

‘No, my lady. Not that.’

Dark dread began to close around my heart, but I clung to what I knew must be the truth. Henry would control the situation, the reins firmly in his hand, as skilfully as a knight would direct his mount when riding in the lists. How could the news be bad if both sides had withdrawn from battle? ‘Does he come here, then, to Senlis?’ I asked.

John drew in a breath. ‘No…’

The sense of terror, dark and bottomless, began to grip harder, so hard that I could barely take a breath. ‘What is it, John?’ I whispered with a terrible premonition. ‘James?’ I glanced at the silent King of Scotland. ‘Will you not tell me?’

James looked away.

‘Have pity,’ I whispered.

It was John who told me in the end. ‘Henry is dead.’

The words dropped like a handful of pebbles, cast to clatter onto the floor in an empty room. I looked up, away from John, my attention caught, as if I had missed something. Perhaps a bird flown in through the open window to flutter and cheep in panic. Or a murmur of gossip from the damsels. Or Thomas entering with a platter of wine and sweetmeats. Or even my father, come to discover where in France he actually was.

No bird. No conversation. No page or father. No sound except for an echoing silence. Every detail of that room seemed to be fine etched in my mind. My mother was staring at me, her embroidery abandoned in her lap. My damsels seemed frozen in time and space, silent and still as carved statues.

Inconsequentially I marked that the lute player had stopped playing and was looking at me, open-mouthed. That John’s boots and clothing were mud-spattered, that James’s hair, curled on his neck, was matted and sweat-streaked. They must have ridden hard and fast. How strange that they had not sent a courier to tell me about this vital matter that had brought them hotfoot from Vincennes to Senlis…But—I shook my head, trying to release my thoughts from some muffling cloud.

What was it that John had just said?

‘I’m sorry. I don’t…’ I heard myself murmur.

‘Henry is dead,’ John repeated. ‘He died two days ago. I am here to tell you, Katherine. I thought it was my duty to come in person.’

Duty! All was black. My sight, my mind. These words, so gently spoken by a man whom I would call friend, could not be true. Was it a lie? Had it been said to deliberately cause me hurt? My mind shimmered, unable to latch onto the meaning of those three words.

Henry is dead.

‘No.’

Although my lips formed it, I could not even speak the denial. The floor moved under my feet, seeming to lurch towards me as my sight darkened, sparkling with iridescent points of light, jewel bright, that all but blinded me. I felt my knees weakening and stretched out for something solid to catch hold of…And as I felt John clasp my arm, in a rush of silk damask my mother was at my side, catching hold of me with her nails digging into my hand, her voice as harsh as that of a crow’s warning in my ear.

‘Katherine!’

I heard a mew of pain—my own voice.

‘You will not faint,’ my mother muttered. ‘You will not show weakness. Stand up straight, daughter, and face this.’

Face what? Henry is dead. It couldn’t be.

A cup of wine was pushed into my hand by Thomas, but I did not drink, even though my throat felt as raw as if it was full of sand. Unheeded, my fingers opening numbly, the cup fell to the floor and liquid splashed over my skirts.

‘Katherine! Show the courage of your Valois blood!’

And at last, at my mother’s command, I drew myself up and forced my mind to work.

‘Two days ago,’ I heard myself say, slowly. ‘Two days.’

Why had I not known? Why had I not felt some powerful essence leach out of this world when so great a soul left it? What had I been doing two days ago? I frowned as I tried to recall. I had ridden into the forest of Chantilly with a group of my mother’s courtiers. I had visited my father, who did not know my name. My mother had bemoaned the quality of my embroidery. I had done all of that and felt no sense that Henry was dead, that Henry’s soul, at some point in those meaningless events, had departed from his body…

How could he? He was young. In military skill he surpassed all others. Had it been an ambush? A chance attack that had gone wrong?

‘Was it in battle?’ I asked. But surely John had said that there was no battle. I must have misunderstood. ‘Did he lead the army against Cosne after all?’

‘No. It was not a wound,’ John explained, relieved to be asked something that he could answer. ‘He was struck down with dire symptoms. The bloody flux, we think. A soldier’s disease—but far more virulent than most.’

‘Oh.’ I could not take it in, that he was dead of some common ailment. My magnificent husband cut down by the soldiers’ flux.

‘For the last three weeks he could barely rise from his bed,’ John continued to explain in flat tones that expressed nothing of the agony Henry must have suffered. Or the anxieties of his captains.

‘I sent for a new doctor from England,’ I said. ‘Henry said that he should wait here. I should have sent him to Vincennes…’

‘I doubt he could have reversed the illness,’ John soothed. ‘He was failing for three weeks. You must not blame yourself.’

The words swirled around me, pecking at my mind like a flock of insistent chickens. This made no sense. Three weeks!

‘He could barely ride when he left here—he was too weak in spite of his insistence,’ John continued. ‘We travelled to Vincennes by river in the end, which was easier. Henry tried to ride the final miles into camp but it could not be.’ John passed his tongue over dry lips. ‘He was carried the last distance in a litter.’

‘And that was three weeks ago.’

‘Yes, my lady. On the tenth day of August. He did not leave his bed again.’

But…it made no sense. He had been so ill that he could not ride a horse for three weeks? For a moment I closed my eyes against what I now understood…Then opened them and fixed John with a stare, for I must know the truth and I would not allow him to dissemble.

‘My husband was bedridden for three weeks.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who was with him? At the end?’

‘I was. His uncle Exeter. Warwick. His captains. James, of course.’ His eyes slid from mine. Dear John. He knew exactly what I was asking. ‘I think there might have been other members of his council, and of course his household. I forget…’

‘And what did you speak of?’

‘What use is this?’ my mother demanded, still at my side, her hand still gripping mine. ‘What use to know what he said? I swear it will give you no comfort.’

I shook her off, stepping to stand alone with a bleak resolve. ‘I need to know. What did you discuss in all those three weeks, John?’

‘Matters of state. Government affairs, of course. The direction of the war…’

‘I see.’

Henry’s brother, his uncle, his friend and captains had all been summoned to his side, but not his wife. They had discussed matters of state, but nothing as personal as the ignorance of a wife who had not been invited to attend her husband’s deathbed. His wife, who could have made the journey within two days if she had been informed. Emotion throbbed behind my eyes: shock that a man who had seemed untouchable should live no more; anger that I should be the last to know.

‘Did he speak of me at the end?’ I asked, my voice perfectly controlled, knowing the answer by now. ‘Did he talk of me or of his son?’

‘Of his son, yes. It was imperative to consider the position of the new king.’ John’s eyes were full of misery as his gaze met mine. I admired his courage to deliver that blow so honestly. I needed honesty beyond anything else.

‘It was not imperative to consider my position. He did not talk of me,’ I stated.

‘No, my lady. Not of you.’

I took a breath against the dark shadows that hovered. ‘What did Henry say at the very end? Did he know he was dying?’

‘Yes. He said that he wished he could have rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. He begged forgiveness for his sins. He said that he had wronged Madam Joanna.’ John smiled grimly. ‘He has released her. You will be relieved to hear that, I know. She never deserved her imprisonment.’

I laughed harshly, mirthlessly. At least he had remembered Madam Joanna.

‘That was all he said, until he committed his soul to Christ’s care.’ John took my hand. ‘Forgive me, Katherine. There was no easy way to deliver this catastrophic news. I cannot imagine your grief. If there is more I can tell you…’

There was really nothing more to ask. Nothing more for me to say. But I did, because the dark clouds were rent and the true horror had struck home.

‘Why did he not tell me that he was near death? Why did he not send for me?’

It was a cry of anguish.

Shamed, because there was no answer that could be made, I covered my mouth with my shaking hands. And walked from the room.

I did not weep. I could not sit, could not lie down on my bed. I stood in the centre of the floor in my chamber and let the realisation wash over me as the sun covered me with its warm blessing from head to foot. I did not feel it. I was shocked to ice, blood sluggish, my heart nothing more than a lump of frozen matter. How could the sun be so warm on my skin when all feeling, all life seemed to have drained from me?

Eventually I discovered that I was sitting on the floor, staring at the barred pattern made by the light and shadow on the tiles. Bars, such as those making a prison cell of a well-furnished room. But now the bars for me were open and for the first time since I had stood before the altar at Troyes I allowed myself to see the truth in all its rawness. I could pretend, I could hope no longer. Henry’s death had written it plain.