The Shadow of the Pomegranate by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online

cage he had prepared for her and was now longing to escape.
    She was so young and so beautiful, but lately the lines of discontent had begun to appear on her brow.
    ‘What luck?’ he asked.
    ‘None. When do I ever have luck? She will not receive me. She will never forgive me for marrying you. I have heard that she thinks I did it to cover up a love affair with Fuensalida. Our Queen cannot understand a noblewoman’s marrying a commoner except to avoid a great scandal. Fuensalida was of a family worthy to match my own.’
    ‘And I am a vulgar commoner,’ sighed Grimaldi.
    Francesca looked at him, her head on one side. Then she smiled and going to him she took his head in her hands and laid her lips lightly on the sparse hair. She loved power and he gave her power over him. He would do anything to please her.
    ‘I married you,’ she answered.
    He could not see her mouth, which had twisted into a bitter line. I married him! she thought. And in doing so I brought about my exile from the Court. It was so easy to offend. Shethought of the frivolous Anne Stafford who was hoping – so desperately hoping – to begin a love affair with the King.
    Then she smiled slowly. Such a woman would never keep her place for more than a night or two. Francesca would not place herself on the side of such a woman; and if it was going to be a matter of taking sides there would be another on which she could range herself.
    If Katharine were grateful to her, might she not be ready to forgive that unfortunate marriage?

    Katharine was on her knees praying with her confessor, Fray Diego Fernandez, and the burden of her prayer was: Let me bear a son.
    Fray Diego prayed with her and he comforted her. He was a young man of strong views and there had been certain rumours, mainly circulated by his enemies, the chief of whom was the ambassador Fuensalida with whom he had clashed on more than one occasion; and another was Francesca de Carceres who had been convinced, first that he was preventing her returning to Spain and, now that she was married and exiled from Court, that he was preventing her being received again.
    The pugnacious little priest was the kind to provoke enemies; but Katharine trusted him; indeed in those days, immediately before her marriage, when she had begun to despair of ever escaping from the drab monotony of Durham House, and had discovered the duplicity of her duenna, Doña Elvira and the stupidity of her father’s ambassador, Fuensalida, she had felt Fray Diego to be her only friend.
    Katharine was not likely to forget those days; her memorywas long and her judgement inflexible. If she could not forgive her enemies, she found it equally difficult to forget her friends.
    Fuensalida had been sent back to Spain; Francesca had proved her treachery by deserting her mistress and escaping to marriage with the banker; but Fray Diego remained.
    She rose from her knees and said: ‘Fray Diego, there are times when I think that you and Maria de Salinas are the only part of Spain that is left to me. I can scarcely remember what my father looks like; and I have almost as little esteem for our present ambassador as I had for his predecessor.’
    ‘Oh, I do not trust Don Luis Caroz either, Your Grace,’ said the priest.
    ‘I cannot think why my father sends such men to represent him at the English Court.’
    ‘It is because he knows his true ambassador is the Queen herself. There is none who can do his cause more good than his own daughter; and none more wise or understanding of the English.’
    Katharine smiled tenderly. ‘I have been blessed in that I may study them at the closest quarters . . . singularly blessed.’
    ‘The King is full of affection towards Your Grace, and that is a matter for great rejoicing.’
    ‘I would I could please him, Fray Diego. I would I could give him that which he most desires.’
    ‘And is there any sign, Your Grace?’
    ‘Fray Diego, I will tell you a secret, and secret it must be, for it is as yet