The Agincourt Bride by Joanna Hickson

little children clung to me as if to a rock in fast-rising water. I did not think they had heard what the third ‘minder’ had said and I was not about to make it worse for them by revealing that the terrifying man they had met in the garden was their father, the king. It was enough that they had suffered his animal screams and would probably see his agonised face in their dreams. More disturbing in the long term was the absence of Michele, Louis and Jean. Their older sister and brothers had been an integral part of their short lives; not always easy or kind but always there, to squabble with, play with or annoy. The nursery was silent and strange without them, a place at once both familiar and frightening.
    Catherine was full of questions. Where had the others gone? Why had they gone? What would happen to them? When were they coming back? Was that lady really her mother? Why hadn’t she spoken to her? Would she come for her, too?
    I had no answers because I had no idea why the queen had taken the older children away, or what would happen to them, or whether they would be back, or why she had completely ignored her two youngest children. Her actions seemed arbitrary and inexcusable, but she was the queen and I supposed there must be some rhyme or reason to it. I had heard much mention of the Duke of Burgundy and his boastful nickname Jean the Fearless, seen Michele’s anguish at the sudden talk of her marriage and gathered that Chartres was their destination, but that was the sum of it. I was as mystified as the children. Perhaps it was significant that we all avoided making mention of the screaming man.
    Once I’d tucked them up, cuddling each other in one truckle bed, I went to seek guidance from the governess and the tutor, but there was no sign of them. Significantly I found their chamber doors standing open and, on entering, the chests and guarderobes empty. Madame la Bonne and Monsieur le Clerc had packed up and gone and, on further investigation, so too had the latest donkeys, for their meagre bundles of belongings were also missing. I had not grasped then what I soon discovered; that having inherited Burgundy, Flanders and Artois on his father’s death the previous year, Jean the Fearless had now set his sights on France and was heading for Paris, scheming to rule in the mad king’s name through his son the dauphin, thus ousting the cosy regime of the queen and the Duke of Orleans.
    I felt completely out of my depth. Only hours before I had been a sleepy nursemaid in a sun-baked garden and now I was alone with two of the king’s children and with little notion of exactly what had happened to the others. Who could I turn to for advice? Would I be blamed for the disappearance of the three older children? Did anyone in authority even know they were missing? Was there anyone in authority still in the palace? It may sound odd, but I felt an urgent need to settle my feelings of panic with some pretence at normality, so I took my basket of mending and sat down in the window of the main nursery to catch the last of the daylight and await developments.
    Tired though they were, the little ones could not sleep and before long they appeared hand in hand, eyes enormous in solemn pinched faces. In their crumpled white chemises, they looked like the waifs of the wood from one of their favourite fairytales.
    ‘We are frightened, Mette. Please tell us a story,’ Catherine begged.
    My heart ached for them. Abandoning the garment I was mending, I opened my arms and pulled them both onto my lap. For a few moments we clung together and gazed out of the open window at the muddy, drought-shrivelled stretch of the Seine which had carried the other children away. The evening sun cast gloomy shadows down the tree-lined banks while across the river on the Île St Louis, weary peasants were stacking corn stooks at the end of a long day’s harvesting. There was a lump in my throat as I started the familiar tale of St Margaret and the