Crown in Candlelight by Rosemary Hawley Jarman Read Free Book Online Page B

Ireland.’
    She nodded and swallowed her anger. That morning she had made confession, revealing matters which took aback even the royal chaplain, inured to sin.
    ‘Father, when the usurper Bolingbroke was at Windsor, I ordered that a spiked poisoned instrument be placed in his bed. I confess this because I am weary and sick of murder and would lead a good life. I am to marry again. I must go to my marriage clean.’
    She wept, and the chaplain, hating the sound of her grief, said: ‘Go then, and renounce your hatred. Wish ill to none. Sin no more. Be penitent.’
    But, she still thought, there had been such dangerous glory in it! Such disappointment when the chamberers annonced their find with cries of horror. Already she had bidden her retinue tear off Bolingbroke’s badge and replace it with Richard’s White Hart. The glory was gone. Murder brought only madness. She returned the anxious pressure of Charles’s hand.
    ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘King Richard liked Prince Harry well.’
    Jean sans Peur entered, full of bonhomie, with a large entourage, including Colard de Laon, merry, with a gout of red paint on his pointed shoe.
    ‘ Ma foi! God Himself dwells in that chapel aloft! I feel the presence of our mighty ancestors!’
    ‘Yes,’ agreed the King. ‘And were they not swift to root out the ills from our house?’
    Jean sans Peur nodded. His long Valois nose had already sniffed out the King’s mood and his heavy eyes glinted. Gladly he anticipated whatever gave the King this gay brittle confidence. There was not long to wait. The outer door shuddered under a violent knocking.
    Isabeau, followed by the Duke of Orléans, marched up the Hall. The King, sitting erect, extended his hand, palm down.
    ‘An honour, my dear Isabeau.’ he said, as she snatched angrily at his fingers and brushed them with her lips. ‘And how is Tours? Our court is bereft without you. Will you not admire my new Italian tapestries? All beauty comes from Italy. Your little painter will know this. But I was forgetting that Monsieur de Laon is no longer in your service. A pity, he is so skilled in the new grisaille …’ He half-turned, almost winked at Jean sans Peur.
    It was a puny gibe, but enough. Isabeau mounted the two stairs of the dais and put her mouth close to the King’s ear.
    ‘Have a care, Charles. Remember when you were Georges Dubois!’
    ‘Dubois?’ he said pleasantly, so that everyone heard. ‘A paramour of yours? Dead, as I recall.’
    The King was ahead of her in taunts and in strategy. No longer could she raise his nightmares. Like a vicious child, he ordered wine and sweets, bidding her admire the gold goblet and plate that had once graced her own table at Tours.
    She took a long draught of wine and said roughly: ‘I did not come here to parry insults. Where is Lord Bosredon?’
    He said seriously: ‘If he is not with you, then … God help us, is there no loyalty? He must have deserted your household. Come, let me console you!’ He stretched out his hands. She saw with fury the wry amusement of Jean sans Peur and the lips of her own son the Dauphin parting in a chuckle. This was a game he understood.
    ‘I demand you bring Bosredon to me. Let me know the nature of his disaffection. Its instigator I need not ask.’
    ‘Why should he be within my court?’
    ‘I sent him—’ She bit her lip. ‘I sent him here to Paris.’
    Charles laughed. ‘Paris! It’s full of taverns and rogues who play with cogged dice. Perhaps even now he lies in drink with his pockets cut, tattling of his high associations …’
    ‘No,’ she said tightly. ‘he’s here.’
    ‘Maybe.’ The king’s whole mood changed suddenly. ‘You are weary from your journey. You must rest, change your clothes.’ He clapped his hands, and Odette came forward. ‘My little one, attend the Queen.’
    ‘I have my own servants,’ said Isabeau.
    ‘I’ve ordered a special banquet,’ he went on. ‘A rare, unequalled catch was taken from the