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

too soon to say. I believe I may be pregnant.’
    ‘Glory be to the saints!’
    She put her fingers to her lips. ‘Not a word, Fray Diego. I could not endure the King’s disappointment should it not be so. You see, if I told him he would want to set the bells ringing;he would tell the entire Court . . . and then . . . if it were not so . . . how disappointed he would be!’
    Fray Diego nodded. ‘We do not wish Caroz to prattle of the matter.’
    ‘Indeed no. Sometimes I wonder what he writes to my father.’
    ‘He writes of his own shrewdness. He believes himself to be the greatest ambassador in the world. He does not understand that Your Grace prepared the way for him. He does not know how you continually plead your father’s cause with the King.’
    ‘I do not see it as my father’s cause, Fray Diego. I see it as friendship between our two countries. I would have perfect harmony between them, and I believe we are working towards it.’
    ‘If Caroz does not ruin everything, it may well be. He is such an arrogant man that he does not know that Your Grace’s father sent him to England because he had sufficient wealth to pay his own way.’
    ‘Ah, my father was always careful with the gold. He had to be. There were so many calls upon it.’
    ‘He and the late King of England were a pair. The King, your husband, is of a different calibre.’
    Katharine did not say that her husband’s extravagance sometimes gave her anxiety; she scarcely admitted it to herself. Henry VII had amassed a great fortune, and once his successor had had a surfeit of pleasure he would shoulder his responsibilities and turn his back on it. Katharine often remembered his behaviour when the people had robbed him of his jewellery so unexpectedly; and she believed that when he was in danger he would always know how to act. He was a boy as yet – a boy who had escaped from a parsimoniousupbringing. He would soon grow tired of the glitter and the gold.
    Fray Diego went on: ‘Your Grace, Francesca de Carceres was at the Palace today, hoping for an audience.’
    ‘Did she ask it?’
    ‘She did and I told her that Your Grace had expressed no desire to see her. She abused me, telling me that it was due to me that you had refused, that I had carried evil tales about her. She is a dangerous woman.’
    ‘I fear so. She is one who will always scheme. I do not wish to see her. Tell her I regret her marriage as much as she evidently does; but since she made it of her own free will I should admire her more if she were content with the station in life which she herself chose.’
    ‘That I will do, Your Grace.’
    ‘And now, Fray Diego, I will join my ladies. And remember I have not even told Doña Maria de Salinas or Lady Elizabeth Fitzwalter of my hopes.’
    ‘I shall treat it as a secret of the confessional, Your Grace; and I shall pray that ere long the whole Court will be praying with me that this time there may be an heir who lives.’

    Francesca de Carceres was furiously angry as she left the Palace. She had always hated Fray Diego Fernandez but never quite so much as she did at this time. She had persuaded herself that it was due to his influence that Katharine would not receive her; and she decided to seek the help of the Spanish ambassador, Don Luis Caroz.
    This was not difficult to arrange, because her husband transacted business for Caroz as he had done for Fuensalida,and the ambassador was a frequent visitor to the Grimaldi household.
    So on his very next visit Francesca detained him and told him that she had news of an intrigue which was taking place at Court and of which she felt he should not be kept in ignorance.
    She then told him that she believed that the King was either conducting, or preparing to conduct, a love affair with Lady Huntingdon.
    The ambassador was horrified. It was essential to Spanish interests that Katharine should keep her influence with the King, and a mistress could mean considerable harm to those