The Battle of the Queens by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online Page B

after whom her brother had been named. Richard Coeur de Lion they called him, because he was such a brave fighter. It seemed only fitting that his life should have been cut short by the arrow of an enemy.
    ‘These are your ancestors,’ Isabella reminded her. ‘Never forget that you are the daughter of a king.’
    ‘Perhaps my father would have liked to lie here with his father.’
    The Queen laughed. ‘Where did you get such a notion, child? Your father was fighting against your grandfather at the end. He at least would not want your father there.’
    ‘Where lies my father?’ asked Joan.
    ‘In Worcester Cathedral. Before he died he asked that he should be buried there close to the grave of St Wulstan.’
    ‘Who was he?’ asked Joan.
    Isabella regarded her daughter intently. Poor child, she would have to grow up quickly. Isabella tried to imagine herself at seven. How much of the sad facts of life had she been able to absorb at that time? Joan would learn in due course that she was the daughter of one of the most evil men who ever lived.
    She said: ‘St Wulstan was a Saxon bishop who was most saintly. Your father thought that the bones of the saint might preserve him from the devil … when he came to claim him.’
    Joan shivered and Isabella laughed. She put an arm about her daughter. ‘Your father was not a good man. As you know the barons rose against him. All will be well now, for your brother will be taught to rule well and the kingdom will grow rich and powerful again. As for you, my child, you will know great happiness. You are going to be the wife of the best man in the world.’
    Joan was relieved, but glad when they left Fontevrault which for her held the ghosts of her terrifying ancestors.
    And so they came to Valence which was the chief town of La Marche; and bordered on the Angoumois, Isabella’s own country.
    All that day as they came closer to their destination Isabella had talked to her daughter of the happy days of her youth and, although Joan believed that very soon she would see her aged bridegroom, her mother’s conversation had its effect on her and she was beginning to believe that she was going to some paradise. Moreover there would be no wedding yet. She would live in that castle where for a time her mother had lived because twenty or so years before when her mother was a girl of eleven she too had ridden to this castle and looked with awe and wonder at what was to be her home. That was comforting. Her mother had loved Valence and so would she.
    And here was the grey stone-walled castle. Serving men and women came hurrying to their aid, paying great homage to Isabella who had become a queen and whom some remembered as the most beautiful little girl they had ever seen.
    In the great hall a man was waiting for them. As her mother took her hand Joan was conscious of Isabella’s tremendous excitement.
    The man was old … very old … surely this could not be the one they had chosen for her husband. He looked closer to a funeral than a wedding – and that his own.
    He had taken Isabella’s hand; he was bowing low; his eyes glistened brightly and he looked as though he might weep at any moment.
    ‘Isabella,’ he said. ‘Isabella.’
    ‘My lord,’ she began and Joan knew that she was looking about the hall for someone she missed.
    ‘As beautiful as ever,’ he murmured. ‘Oh, it is long ago.’
    ‘Let me present my daughter to you.’
    ‘So this is the child.’
    The old eyes were studying her. Joan tried not to look alarmed. He was so very old. Her mother had spoken of her future husband as though he were godlike and now was presenting her to this ancient man.
    Then the old man said: ‘I see that you did not know. My son is not here in Valence, nor in this land. It is a year since he left us. He is with the crusaders in the Holy Land.’
    Joan was aware of floods of relief. This old man was not to be her bridegroom then. Of course he was not. But she had been afraid because she was