In the Shadow of the Crown by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online

I must have been aware at that stage of the growing tension, for I was constantly listening to conversations not meant for me—not of those who were close to me, for they were verycareful to keep me in the dark, but sometimes the scullions and serving maids would pass below my window and I would stand there trying to catch what was said.
    One day I heard three or four of them talking together. There was excitement in their voices. “It could spread …” one maid was saying. “I know it started in the eastern counties on account of the cloth workers…”
    “Who can blame them? What do they care for wars in France if they have no bread to give their children?”
    “Left without work, they were…on account of their masters not having the money to pay them.”
    “On account of paying the tax for the King's war.”
    “All very well… but I tell you what. It's spread to London. That's going to mean something.”
    “What do you think? Revolt?” “
    'Twouldn't be the first time.”
    I was trembling with indignation. They were speaking treason. They were criticizing my father. They were talking of uprisings against him.
    There were times when the Countess was on the point of telling me something. She would start to speak and then stop and frown, perhaps shrug her shoulders and then begin to talk of something else.
    My mother, too, was preoccupied. I felt they were both holding something back from me and, when I heard talk such as that of the servants, I began to grow alarmed.
    Pliny and Socrates lost their interest. It was the present day … my father, the Emperor and the King of France… the Cardinal and the cloth workers who began to take possession of my mind. I was nine years old—a precocious nine. I wanted to know what was going on.
    It was not often that I saw my mother, and those occasions when I did were very precious. I did not want to spoil them by making her more unhappy than she already was. I could not ask her the questions I longed to, for my reason told me that they would be upsetting to her; so I sought subjects which I thought would please her.
    It was different with the Countess. As I was sure she had often been on the verge of telling me something, perhaps a little prompting would urge her to tell me what I felt I ought to know.
    “Countess,” I said, when we were alone together, “what is happening? Is it true that there are riots in the country?”
    “Where did you learn such things?”
    “I hear scraps of conversation.”
    She frowned. Then she shrugged her shoulders and said, “There has been a certain amount of trouble in some parts of the country.”
    “The cloth workers of the eastern counties,” I said, “and now in London.”
    She was astonished.
    She said, “I forget how you grow up. You are too old for your years. I suppose you should know these things.” She hesitated and then seemed to come to a decision. “Yes,” she went on. “There has been trouble. It is the new tax. It was crippling to the manufacturers who could not pay their workers. It was for the war against France. The King and the Cardinal saw that it would be unwise to have trouble at home. So the tax was withheld and the people paid just what they liked.”
    “Was that enough?”
    “Well…yes…as it turned out, because there was not to be a war in France after all.”
    “But was not my father fighting with the Emperor against France?”
    “My dear Princess, at one time that was so, but relations between countries…politics… they change so quickly. An enemy of one day is a friend the next.”
    “How can that be?”
    She was silent for a while, then she said, “A ruler has to consider what is best for his country.”
    “But the Emperor is a good ruler and so is the King, my father, but the King of France…he is wicked.”
    “Dearest Princess, it may be that one day you will be a ruler.”
    I caught my breath.
    “Well,” she went on, “you are the King's only child.”
    “But not a