‘I know he does not wish me to be here. But I thought that I must.’

‘You are a courageous woman, Katherine.’

‘I assure you I am not! My heart is thudding hard enough to crack a rib.’

‘There are many forms of courage.’

When Lord John took hold of my hand, to fold it warmly in his as he helped me to dismount, I held on tightly. I would need all of his strength behind me when I came face to face with Henry.

Henry and I met just outside Paris, at the palace at Blois de Vincennes, our joint arrival coinciding fortuitously, although Henry’s was far more impressive for he had moved his whole court there after the fall of Meaux.

I was able to slip almost invisibly through the throng of military and baggage wagons, artillery and horseflesh, catching a glimpse of Henry in the midst, so that my heart lurched in familiar fashion at the sight of him, but I knew better than to approach. Henry was more amenable when things were done on his own terms.

For a moment I simply looked, held fast in fascination. He was listening to one of his captains, then pointed and issued an order. Another captain claimed his attention before marching off to carry out some instruction. I grimaced silently then left him to his arrangements.

See what an amenable wife you are becoming. Perhaps one day he will actually love you if you efface yourself enough and jump to obey.

I shook my head and settled myself with John in one of the audience chambers, and was delighted when James of Scotland found his way to join us, with all the pleasure of reunion and a cup of wine. As lively as I remembered him, his curly hair still rioting, he had grown, in height and breadth and in confidence.

‘We have missed you,’ I told him.

‘I enjoy soldiering,’ he announced.

‘Good. Are you better at it than writing verses?’

He laughed. ‘I can’t help it if you do not recognise the hand of a master.’ Then: ‘How is Joan?’

‘Languishing in London.’ And I told him of her, yet all the time my senses stretched for the sound of Henry’s footsteps, every muscle tensing when I finally heard them.

Henry walked into the room, bringing with him all the authority and regal bearing I recalled from the past. Assured, proud, supremely powerful: that was the Henry I remembered. And I stood there, wishing John and James would leave us alone together, terrified that they would. Eleven months since I had last seen him, and I had only spent a little longer than that with him as his wife. Even that had been interrupted by siege and royal progresses. Now, in the wake of such distancing, I was seized by terrible uncertainty. Predictably, my confidence drained away as he strode in, his eyes taking in every detail of who was there to meet with him. They moved to me, then over my face to John and James.

Keeping my own face carefully welcoming, I watched his expression, searching for pleasure or disinterest. Or—my belly clenched—would he castigate me for disobeying his express order to remain in England? All I could do was to sink down into a deep obeisance. I was here. I would not retreat. I rose to my full height, spine firm. Henry and John embraced, smiling, exchanging words of greeting. He clipped James on the shoulder in warm acknowledgement.

Henry walked slowly to where I stood. I said, before he could speak to me, to forestall any reprimand, foolishly, as a child might, ‘I persuaded John to bring me.’

Henry’s reply was light and cool. ‘You shouldn’t have come. And he should have known better.’

‘I wanted to see you. It is well nigh a year since…’ I said precisely. And then my mind was seized by something quite different. Fear of rejection was wiped entirely from my thoughts.

‘There were no dangers, Hal,’ his brother interposed. ‘We travelled via Rouen—the peace seems to be holding there.’

‘It is, thank God.’

Now, at last, Henry took my hands in his and, with a strained smile, saluted my cheeks.

‘You look well, Katherine.’

And you don’t look well at all.

I stopped myself from saying it, but the impulse was strong. He looked immensely tired, the lines at the corners of his eyes a mesh of crow’s feet, his skin pulled taut over cheekbone and jaw, and a line between his brows did not smooth away, even when he smiled at me at last. I thought he had lost weight. Always tall and slender rather than heavily muscled, his frame could ill-afford to lose flesh. His hands around mine looked as finely boned as a woman’s.

‘We got tired of waiting,’ explained John, and when Henry turned his head to respond I was horrified by the translucence of his skin at his temple. He looked stretched and weary to the bone, with an uncomfortable pallor beneath his campaigning bronze.

He kept hold of my hands. ‘How is my son?’

I dragged my mind from Henry’s appearance to reply with a smile, ‘He thrives. He is safe at home. Look—I have brought this for you.’ I released myself from his hold to draw from my sleeve a screw of parchment that I gave to him, explaining as he opened it, ‘It’s Young Henry’s. His hair will be like yours.’

Henry smoothed his thumb over the curl of hair and, to my relief, laughed softly. ‘Thank you.’ He tucked it into his tunic.

‘When will you come back to England to see him?’ I asked, before I could stop myself.

And there was the bleak lack of emotion that I so feared. ‘I don’t know. You should know better than to ask.’

‘What are your plans?’ John added with the slide of an apologetic eye in my direction.

Henry turned his head as if to reply. Took a breath. Then frowned.

‘Later, I think,’ he responded curtly. ‘We’ll talk later.’

‘Of course. Shall we share a flagon of good Bordeaux?’

Henry shook his head. ‘In an hour. I’ll find you.’ And strode swiftly from the room. We heard him shouting for his squire to order the disposal of his baggage—and then silence. With a little shrug, James followed him.

John and I looked at each other.

‘He worries me,’ I said simply.

‘He is weary. Long campaigns—particularly sieges—take it out of the best of soldiers. A rest will restore his good humour.’

I thought that Henry had little humour at the best of times. ‘I thought he looked ill.’

‘Lack of food, lack of sleep, that’s all.’

That was what Alice had said. I supposed she was right.

‘He was pleased to see you.’

‘Was he?’

‘It will all work out well. You’ll see. Give him time to settle in here. His victory at Meaux was a great one but draining. Sieges always are. Give him time.’

I was not convinced, and thought that John’s repetitions were an attempt to allay his own fears. I walked in front of him from the room so that he would not see the threat of tears.

When we met for supper Henry seemed much restored, although he only picked at the dishes and drank little. He left us before the end without explanation or excuse. In nervous anticipation I sat in my sheets, trembling, my hair loose and gleaming, as seductive as any bride, but Henry did not come. I had been so sure that he would. I thought the need to converse with me about Young Henry, even to take the necessary steps to produce another son, would be important, but he did not come. All my tentative hopes for our reconciliation after so long a time were dashed, ground like shells into sand under the unstoppable onslaught of the sea.

There was no leisure to be had at Vincennes. We moved on to Paris almost immediately for a ceremonial entry in the heat of May, our arrival timed to match that of my parents. We stayed at the Louvre in cushioned luxury, Isabeau and my father consigned to the worn and shabby rooms of the Hôtel de St Pol. My father was too indisposed to notice. Isabeau merely scowled her disapproval when Henry bowed to her.

Henry and I received visitors, both English and French, we attended banquets too many to count and we watched the Mystery of St George. Henry shuffled throughout and made his excuse before the final bow of the brave knight after his dispatch of the terrible dragon.

‘I’ll sit through this no longer,’ he growled, and stalked from the chamber, leaving me to smile brightly to smooth over any ill feelings. The next day we packed up and, detouring to visit the tombs of my ancestors at St Denis, travelled on to Senlis, where Henry made it clear that we would remain for a short time.

‘Thank God!’ I remarked to John. ‘At least we can draw breath.’ Even though Isabeau and my father had followed hard on our heels. ‘Perhaps he can rest at last.’

In all this time Henry had not shared my bed for even an hour, which in itself was a source of anxiety for me. One son left a throne weak. I would imagine that Henry would want more, and that this would be too good an opportunity for him to miss. How many more days could we guarantee that we would be together? But he did not. Fine drawn, strung with nerves, Henry avoided me, and I knew better than to suggest any of Alice’s nostrums. I dared not. The tension around Henry was sharp as his goshawk’s talons.

I dared not, not even when Henry came to my room that final night, when I least expected it, when I had given up hope. As I was kneeling at my prie-dieu, he entered quietly, pushing the door closed at his back and leaning against it. His face was in shadow but I could not mistake the dark smudges of exhaustion below his eyes. Where his chamber robe fell away from his neck, the tendons stood out in high relief. For a long moment he did not move. He was looking at me but I did not think he saw me.

‘Henry…’

It was the first time we had been alone together since I had returned to France. Unnerved, I stood and I stretched out my hand, my mind suddenly flooded with compassion. Where was the pride, the stern composure? Here was a man suffering from some terrible weight, but whether of mind or body I did not know. Instinct told me that he needed me, and I would respond with all the generosity in my heart, but would he tell me what troubled him?