The Strangled Queen by Maurice Druon Read Free Book Online

me as your lover instead of that young fool of an equerry, things would not have turned out for you as they have, and we would have been very happy."
    "Of course," she murmured.
    He held her by the waist, and he had the impression that the moment was near when she would cease to be able to think.
    "It is not too late, Marguerite," he said softly.
    "Perhaps not," she replied in a hoarse, consenting voice.
    "Let's get rid of this letter now, so that we need have no concern but ourselves. Let's tell the Chaplain, who is waiting below, to come up."
    She started away from him.
    "Waiting below, did you say?" she cried, her eyes bright with anger. "Oh, Cousin, do you think I am such a fool as all that? You have behaved towards me as whores normally do towards men, arousing their sensuality the better to bend them to their will. But you forget that in that line women are better than men, and you are no more than an apprentice."
    Angry, tensely upright, she defied him and re-knotted the collar of her shirt.
    He tried to persuade her that she had misunderstood him, that he wanted nothing but her good, that their conversation had taken an unexpected turn, that he had suddenly remembered the poor priest freezing at the bottom of the staircase.
    She looked at him with scorn and irony. He picked her up, though she did her best to defend herself, and carried her roug hly to
    the bed.
    "No, I shall not sign," she cried, fighting against him. "You can rape me if you like, because you are too strong for me to be able to resist you, but I shall tell the Chaplain, I shall tell Ber sumee, I shall let Marigny know what sort of ambassador you are and how you have taken advantage of me."
    Furiously angr y, he let her go, restraining himself from slapping her face as he felt inclined to do.
    "Never, do you see," she went on, "will you get me to admit that my daughter is not Louis's, for should Louis die, which I hope he does with all my heart, my daughter would become Queen of France, and then people would have to take some, account of me as Queen Mother."
    For a moment Artois remained silent in astonishment. "What she says makes sense, the clever bitch," he said to himself, "and if by chance fate should prove her right ..." He was checkmated. "It's an unlikely chance," he replied all the same. "I have no other, so I shall hang on to it." "As you will, Cousin," he said, going to the door.
    His double failure made him extremely angry. He went down the stairs, found the Chaplain waiting for him, chilled to the bone, a bunch of goose-quills in his hand.
    "Monseigneur," said the Priest, "you won't forget to say, to Brother Renaud ..."
    "Yes," shouted Artois, "I'll tell him that you're an ass, my fine fellow; I don't know where t he hell you manage to find weaknesses in your penitents! "
    Then he called, "Escort! To horse!"
    Bersumee arrived, still wearing the helmet which had not left his head since morning.
    "What are my orders, Monseigneur?" he asked. "What, your orders? Obey those you already have." "And my furniture?"
    "I don't care a damn about your furniture."
    Artois's great Norman horse was already being led out to him, and Lormet held the stirrup ready.
    "And who will pay for the food, Monseigneur?" asked Bersumee.
    "You will get it from Messire de Marig ny! Go and lower the drawbridge! "
    Artois hoisted himself athletically into the saddle and set off at a mad gallop, followed by his whole escort.
    Soon in the falling darkness nothing-was to be seen upon the slopes of Chateau-Gaillard but the sparks struck by the horses' shoes.
    4. Long Live the King!

    THE flames of thousands of topers arranged in clusters against the pillars, threw their wavering light upon the effigies of the Kings of France; ever and again the long stone faces seemed to assume the mobile expressiveness of a dream world, and one might have thought that an army of knights was sleeping an enchanted sleep in the middle of a flaming forest.
    In the basilica of Saint-Denis, the