Crown in Candlelight by Rosemary Hawley Jarman Read Free Book Online

Orléans knelt beside her now with the flagon of Gascon wine ready and a familiar expression on his face that was compounded of disdain, lust, and abject loyalty that he was powerless to betray. She kept him dangling still, giving him half-promises of favours physical and political, allowing him a sight of her body when he came to bid goodnight, but as often taunting him, calling him weak, mad, like his brother—although Charles, to her chagrin, remained whole, with the kingdom firmly under his hand.
    The other blood-servant she owned was Louis Bosredon, after whom the Dauphin had once named a rat. Bosredon’s love-making had a brutality that stirred her jaded palate, and she used him to drive the gentler Louis wild with jealousy. Once in mischief she had invited both of them to her bed.
    She and her brother had spied on them from behind a screen. Keen sport; for she knew the predilection of Louis of Orléans. A little womanly, a little warped. Louis Bosredon was entirely man and tempered like one. His fury had excelled at Louis’s timid overtures. Only barely had she and her brother prevented outright murder that night.
    It was useful to have them at one another’s throats. Each striving to outdo the other to her will. She pictured Bosredon’s sensual face, his wicked laughing eyes. Only he dared mock her with impunity. And now he had not returned from Paris. She had sent him there to learn what he could of the King’s affairs, and had expected him back at Tours days ago. She began angrily to think in terms of his disaffection. Also, she missed him. She took the refilled goblet impatiently from Orléans.
    ‘ You would not care if he never returned!’
    ‘Who, highness?’ he said, too innocently.
    She sighed furiously and rose to pace about, more anxious than she cared to reveal.
    ‘I would have trusted him with my life,’ she murmured. ‘Louis, Louis,’ striking her fists against the sides of the gown.
    ‘My queen?’
    ‘Ah, fool!’ She spoke so viciously that he wondered: why do I, a royal Duke, stay to suffer this abuse? Why did I rejoice when she finally forgave me for ruining her schemes for Milan and for condoning the match between Charles and Isabelle? Why do I neglect my own wife, my quiet Violante? In the hope that one day this wicked woman will be kind to me? His heart stirred, and with that unholy passion came again the old reasonless precognition of disaster.
    ‘It’s late,’ he said.
    ‘I shall not retire,’ she answered, still treading the tiles. ‘None of us will sleep tonight. He will come!’
    She does the upstart honour. He bit his thumbnail savagely. Isabeau seated herself again.
    ‘Entertain me.’
    A page brought Louis a gittern and he drew an elegant thread of music from the strings.

    La plus belle et doulce figure,
    La plus noble gente faiture,
    C’est ma chiere dame et mestresse,
    Bon an, bon jour, joye et liesse,
    Li doinst dieux et bone aventure!

    Moved by the music, he believed that his lady was all that the song said: soft and kind. Only when he looked up at her did he know himself deluded.
    ‘That’s Grenon’s work!’ She scowled. ‘I would rather not hear the songs of Burgundy.’
    She was on her feet again, murmuring and frowning. Louis sang an Italian ditty and the servants dozed on their feet, like horses. Twice Isabeau sent to ask if there had been messages from Bosredon, and her frown grew tighter. The hours hobbled by. In the last shred of night Louis slept, to be awakened by the Queen kicking at his leg with her spurred boot.
    ‘We ride to Paris! If Bosredon has forgotten his duty to me, I shall take pleasure in reminding him.’
    Within minutes horses and an escort were ready. Stiff with weariness, Louis mounted and followed the Queen. Four days’ ride! and if he knew Isabeau, she would do it in three. He was not looking forward to meeting King Charles and he wondered how much he remembered of the cruel baiting in which he, Louis, had taken part. Skirting