"So you will believe the word of a treacherous priest against mine, my lord?" she asked.

"We shall investigate, of course. In the meantime I have decided to put you under guard."

"Here in Havering?"

"No, you will go to Pevensey Castle. There Sir John Pelham will be your host."

"You mean my jailer?"

"He will take good care of you and treat you as your rank requires."

"But I shall be his prisoner."

"And if you are guilty, my lady, your goods will be confiscated to the crown."

"Ah," she said, "I understand. They will be of some help to the King in pursuing the war in France."

Bedford was silent.

She was resigned. She knew her stepsons. They could make themselves believe that they were acting justly and all they cared about really was bringing money into the exchequer. She should have known better.

"There is one request I have to make," she said. "My son Arthur is in Fotheringay. He is Henry's prisoner as I shall be. Could we share our imprisonment?"

Bedford looked horrified.

She saw the thoughts chasing each other through his mind. Two of them in one castle! What plots they might fabricate.

"You will go to Pevensey," he said stonily. "And now, my lady, you will wish to prepare. You leave tomorrow."

He bowed and left her. She looked about her. Soon this place where she had lived during her widowhood would be a memory. She thought then of Colles and Brocart. Perhaps they should try to escape to France. Would it be wiser for them to go or stay? If they were caught something might be proved against them, innocent as they were. Yet if they fled that would be taken as an assumption of their guilt. She must warn them and leave them to make the decision.

The next day she left for Pevensey. When she was arriving at the castle she was treated by Sir John Pelham with the respect due to her rank, so she could not therefore complain of her reception.

If only she could have been with Arthur at Fotheringay she would have been almost content for it soon became clear that no case was to be brought against her. Colles and Brocart had not been questioned even. But her wealth had been confiscated.

Bedford had achieved his purpose. Her immense fortune was now in the hands of the King.

She would remain his prisoner, awaiting his pleasure.

KATHERINE DE VALOIS

Katherine de Valois, Princess of France, was wondering what her fate was to be. Would she indeed be the bride of the King of England? It had seemed so once, but now she was not so sure. Nothing had ever been very sure in her life.

Her seventeen years had been turbulent ones. Sometimes she wondered how she had lived through them. Her father was mad—not all the time, it was true, but no one could be sure when he would lapse into that dismal state. Her mother was a schemer—a Jezebel they called her and perhaps not without cause. She had dominated Katherine's childhood and the little girl had been terrified of her while she was filled with great depth of feeling—an admiration for her flamboyant beauty, an awe of her vitality, and a realization of her power which at times seemed evil. The Queen was like a goddess who ruled the lives of her children—sometimes malignant, sometimes benign and to whom they must offer complete submission.

Isabeau of Bavaria was reckoned to be the most beautiful woman in France and as she was married to a man who, even though he was the King, was now and then little more than an imbecile, perhaps it was not surprising that she, forceful woman that she was, should take over the reins of government and try to rule France.

Katherine could only rejoice in her passing out of childhood. At least now she was able to understand what was happening around her and practise some self preservation. There had been wretched days when she was very young and she and her brothers and sisters had never known from one day to the next what was going to happen to them. They had longed for the days when their father came out of what he called "his darkness'. He was kind and affectionate and when he had emerged from that darkness everything would change miraculously. But they soon began to realize that they could never be sure when the shadows were going to claim him again.

She had been very young when Uncle Louis of Orleans was murdered in the streets of Paris, but she had been aware that some terrible disaster had occurred. At the time she and her brothers and sisters had been in the Palace of St Pol where they had not had enough to eat. She had not understood at the time why life had changed so suddenly. From luxury to this abject poverty had seemed to her just the normal way of life. Later of course she knew that her father was in one of his lost periods and that her mother and Uncle Louis of Orleans were lovers and ruled the kingdom, for her mother had persuaded the King that his brother should be Regent during his lapses. With her sisters and Louis the Dauphin and the two younger brothers she had lived as best she could with the help of one or two lower servants. The others had all left because their wages had not been paid.

For a long time no one had come to see them. Strange days they had been—but not altogether unhappy. It was amazing how quickly children could adjust themselves to a way of life. They had often been hungry but she could remember now the sheer joy of holding a cup of hot soup in her hands and the ecstatic moment when it touched her lips. Soup never tasted like that nowadays. They had all been dirty; they had lice in their hair and on their bodies; they would laugh as they caught them and vie with each other, boasting when theirs was the bigger catch. It was like a dream, looking back.

As she grew older, she understood what it all meant. Her mother took the revenues from the household exchequer so that she could live voluptuously with her lover. Uncle Orleans was no better. This would have gone on if their father had not one day walked out of his apartments at St Pol, blinking his eyes as though he had awakened from a dream—his madness gone and ready to rule again.

The children had been hustled out of the Palace and out of Paris. They had quickly been pursued and brought back but not before they had been cleaned, clothed and fed; and soon after that Uncle Louis of Orleans had been murdered in the streets while he was leaving the Queen's lodgings. This murder had been committed at the instigation of Katherine's great-uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, who had decided to put an end to the rule of Orleans.

Her mother was imprisoned at Tours and Katherine and her sister Marie were sent to the convent of Poissy there to be educated and brought up in a manner fitting for princesses.

It was a complete turn about—from the wild adventures of the world outside convent walls to the well ordered life inside. There were lessons, prayers—endless prayers—living sedately, thinking sometimes of the wild days at St Pol when she was hungry and lousy but for some reason she was not unhappy.

Marie declared herself to be disillusioned with the world. It was when she was thinking of their mother that she said this. Marie was becoming more and more drawn towards the convent life. Katherine never would be.

Her sister Isabella had returned from England where she had been the Queen until the people had deposed her husband. She had seen a little of Isabella, but her eldest sister was so withdrawn and melancholy that Katherine had not thought very much about her.

Then she had married the son of Uncle Orleans and when he had been murdered Isabella became the new Duchess. Poor Isabella, she had not been happy. Once she had come to the convent to see her sisters and she had told them that her happiness lay in England in the tomb of her first husband, Richard. She had died when her baby was born. Poor Isabella!

"What a sad life," said Marie. "One would be happier dedicated to the service of God."

Marie was growing more and more remote every day. When she heard that Henry the King of England wanted to marry her she said she would never marry anyone. That had decided her. She wanted her father to understand that she longed for the peace of the convent and that marriage had no charms for her.

Of course Princesses must do what they were bid. But their father was a kind man. It was to be hoped that Marie was not forced into marriage during one of his dark spells by their mother who had emerged from her captivity and was making her presence at Court felt again.

"He wanted Isabella," said Marie. "I have heard that he was in love with her when he was only the son of the Duke of Hereford, that was before his father took the throne from Richard. Isabella would have none of him. She would have none of any but Richard."

"But she took Charles of Orleans."

"Yes, because she was forced to. I heard she cried all through the ceremony."

"Poor poor Isabella!"

"She is dead now. How much better to give one's life to God."

The news of the terrible defeat at Agincourt eventually came to the convent.

Katherine, who was now fourteen years old, realized the implication of this. The English were victorious. They would overrun France and her father might even lose his crown for that was what Henry of England was fighting for.

It was terrifying, for what hope had her father of holding off the enemy when his country was beset by internal strife. Ever since the murder of Orleans there had been a feud between Orleans and Burgundy; and in the centre of it was her poor father with his unstable mind and a wife who was renowned for her rapacity and her adulterous intrigues.