Wife to Henry V: A Novel by Hilda Lewis Read Free Book Online Page B

Burgundy's sister—one could do nothing with John!
    Oh but she was tired of the plotting and the planning; tired of playing Queen and King, too. A woman's power should come from the game of love, not from politics. But there was no one else, no one.
    * * *
    He had got through. The joybells were ringing the length and breadth of England, ringing for Agincourt. Queen Johanne heard them sleeping and waking. But Johanne must hide her grief.
    Though her son had been taken at Agincourt—Arthur born of her body, prisoner in the hands of her dearest son Henry; though her young daughter was widowed and her best and dearest slain, she must give no sign; queens must hide their grief. So she would ride in the great procession, offer her thanks at St. Paul's, speak her words of praise, of joy, lest some mischief-maker, unforgiving of her foreign blood, inform the King. She must not offend her dearest son . She must forever bolster that vanity of which God knew he had enough and to spare. Oh, he could play humble but she knew him, she knew him!
    The women tired her hair, set the head-dress and the flowing veil; put about her neck the great jewelled chain...and all the time she smiled.
    * * *
    He had got through . By God's grace and his own courage he had got through. They had broken the crown upon his head, cloven it to the helmet beneath. Very well, he would set the crown of France in its place. Let them look to it!
    He sat studying the names of the slain at Agincourt; the names of the prisoners their ransoms already estimated. The table was littered with his lists. He looked across at Charles of Orléans sitting dejected.
    So this was the fellow who had married the young Isabella; who had climbed to his poet's glory lamenting her death...and had married again as soon as might be! He was glad Charles was alive; glad to hold him in the strength of his hand. A miracle Charles was not dead—a sign from God to His Soldier. He had seen, with his own eyes, his men drag the body from the pile of the dead and begin to strip it before throwing it into the great grave where Frenchmen lay higgledy-piggledy. And then he had heard it, the long-drawn sigh of the spirit lamenting its return. He had commanded the men to stop; they would have gone on with the work, thrown the living to lie among the dead, had they had their way.
    And now Charles sat in the royal tent, his face turned away, refusing to eat, willing himself to die.
    “Cheer yourself, man,” and he had feared Charles would die, indeed. “It's better to be alive than dead!” So he said, knowing as well as Charles that it is better to be dead though your body lie naked to the wolves, than to languish in a strange land.
    He sent Charles a friendly smile; Charles did not return it, knowing that beneath the friendly face the cold mind watched to squeeze every drop of advantage from the living and the dead.
    “There is wealth and to spare here!” Henry slapped upon the papers and saw how Charles brightened at the mere thought of ransom. But there would be no ransom for him—now or ever. Charles stood too near the throne. Let him cool his ardent blood in prison; Isabella lay in a colder place.
    Charles, watching still, knew his fate.
    “You should have left me to die,” he said.
    Henry lifted an eye from his lists. “What's wrong with living? England's a fair place. And a peaceful one. You may write your rhymes to your heart's content.” He was spiteful, a little, remembering Orléans' lament for Isabella— The Obsequies for Madame ; remembering, again, how soon Orléans had taken a new wife. “And,” he was smooth above his spite, “the ladies of England are kind.”
    Charles said nothing. Henry could see how bitterness choked him. But it would not last long. Henry knew his sort! The poet's alchemy would transmute bitterness into the sweetness of song.
    * * *
    He had got through . Catherine sat in her bower and thought her thoughts. To whom could she speak? Not to her father wild