The Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online

restive. December had come and, although the King often looked fatigued, he still attended the masques and entertainments which Marguerite and François devised. I believed that they, like the Queen, were anxious to tire him out.
    Poor man, I thought. In a way it is a gentle sort of murder. How dreadful that people should want to be rid of you so much that they areprepared to kill you…even gently. But what goals these people had! For the Trinity there was the crown; for the Queen there was Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
    I wondered if Louis knew. He was a very astute man, so it might have occurred to him.
    I think he was longing for the Queen to be pregnant so that he could foil François's hopes. If what I heard was true, he was apprehensive about leaving the crown to François. He was a good king who cared about his country. I wished that I knew more about French history. I did know that there had been a hundred years’ war which the English had lost and that one of the Charleses—Charles VII, I believe—had been crowned because of the success of Joan of Arc who had been burned as a witch. But it was the present in which everyone was interested now and it seemed as eventful as anything that had gone before.
    As the weeks passed the tension seemed to be rising. The Queen was aware of it and did all she could to intensify it. She liked to tease. I had quickly realized that. I had seen her when in the presence of the Duchess Louise, being aware of how closely the older woman watched her, giving some little sign which might mean that she was
enceinte
.
    She used to laugh about it. “Well, why not?” she said. “Let us give the lady some excitement. Did you see her eyes on me? She would like to bore through me. Is she? Is she not? I can see the question in her eyes. And if she is…
mon dieu, mon François
…my god, my Caesar… deprived of the crown. The good God cannot be so cruel. What a king he will make! And that poor, feeble old man struggles on when there is my incomparable François…”
    She gave a good imitation of the Duchess which made me laugh.
    I think she was beginning to feel that we were reaching some climax, for she talked more frankly now. Charles! It was always Charles. I would not have thought such a mercurial creature could have been so faithful, so single-minded. But however much she flitted from one enthusiasm to another, she was always true to Charles.
    “I would be happier in a little house… right away from everyone…if Charles were in it with me,” she told me wistfully. “These fine clothes, these jewels… this flattery… this homage…I would give it all for a quiet life with Charles.”
    I was not sure that I believed her. She seemed to have been born for her position, just as her brother seemed to be for his.
    She was talking more and more of Charles. I would brush her hair and she would close her eyes. I heard her murmur once: “How much longer?”
    I almost said: It is only eight weeks since we came, Madame. But I had learned my lesson. It was unwise for me to comment; and at times she was really talking to herself.
    Sometimes she seemed depressed and then she would talk of Charles to me, how he had first come to Court with little hope of promotion save for one thing.
    “His father was the standard-bearer to my father at the battle of Bosworth Field. His father died defending mine. We Tudors remember our friends… and our enemies. When my father was declared the rightful King and the usurper Richard was dead, he remembered the faithful standard-bearer and sent a message to his widow to tell her that if his son came to Court there would be a place for him. And that was how Charles came to Court. He was put into the house of the Duke of York. Perhaps he would have preferred to be in that of the Prince of Wales. But fate works strangely, does it not? For the Prince of Wales married Katharine of Aragon and very soon he was dead and his brother, Henry, Duke of York, became