The Forbidden Queen. Anne O'Brien

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СКАЧАТЬ never tasted the warmth of her mother’s arms or the casual affection of a father, or even the studied care of a governess, understand the power, the delights of love given freely and unconditionally? I did not know love in all its intricacies.

      All that was made plain to me in those years was that to keep my feet on a narrow path and obey the dictates of those in authority over me earned me recognition and, very occasionally, praise.

      ‘I hear that you have learned to play the lute with some minor skill,’ the Prioress observed.

      ‘Yes, Mother.’ I flushed with pleasure.

      ‘That is good.’ She eyed my heated cheeks. ‘But pride is a sin. You will say three Aves and a Paternoster before Vespers.’

      If I tried hard enough to follow the rules, to live as good a life as the Prioress expected, would I not become a creature worthy of love? Perhaps my father the King would recognise me and lavish affection on me. Perhaps the Queen would grow to love me and smile on me. Perhaps someone would rescue me from Poissy so that I might live as a Valois princess should live, to my immature mind, wrapped around with luxury, with silk robes and a soft bed.

      I could never control my dreams of a better future. My heart remained a useless, tender thing, yearning for love, even when my childish dreams of rescue came to naught. For no one came to release me from my convent cell. No viable husband appeared on my horizon, however obedient I might be.

      I did not see the Queen again for more years than I could count.

      Then, when I was nearing my fifteenth year, Isabeau, our unpredictable and absent mother, found her way back to Poissy. I was summoned to her presence, where I went, drawing on all my hard-learned composure. I no longer had Michelle, now wed to our Burgundian cousin, to stand at my side, and regretted it.

      ‘You have grown, Katherine,’ she observed. ‘In the circumstances I suppose I must open my coffers for some new garments for you.’

      Her gaze travelled over me, from the coarse cloth that strained over my developing body down to the well-worn leather on my feet. Voluptuously plump, her own extravagant curves clothed in silk and damask, the Queen’s mouth tightened at the prospect of spending money on any project not for her own pleasure. But then, startling me, she smiled, stepped close and took my chin in her hand, to lift my face to the weak light struggling through the high window slit in the nuns’ parlour.

      I tried to bear her firm grip and close scrutiny with an inner calm I did not possess. I found that I was holding my breath. Certainly I dared not raise my eyes to her face.

      ‘How old are you now?’ she mused. ‘Fourteen? Fifteen? Almost a woman grown.’ Now I risked a glance. Isabeau had pursed her lips, eyes, always speculative, taking assessment of my features, as her fingers combed through a lock of hair that had strayed from my coif. ‘Your features are pure Valois. Not bad on the whole. There is elegance about you I would not have expected.’ She smiled a little. ‘The colour of your hair is mine—spun gold—and perhaps your nature too will be mine. Should I pity you or commend you?’ Her eyes sharpened. ‘Yes, it is time that you were wed. And I have a husband in mind for you, if I can catch him and hold him tight. What do you think of that?’

      A husband. My eyes widened, a little weight of anticipation settling in my belly like a cup of warm ale on a frosty morning, but since it was entirely a surprise, I could not say what I thought about it. I had expected it, prayed for it to happen one day, but now that the moment had come…

      ‘Do you ever have anything to say, Katherine?’ Isabeau asked caustically.

      This I considered unfair, since she had had no occasion to ask my opinion on any matter since the day she had delivered me to Poissy. Not that I would dare to give it.

      ‘I would like to be wed,’ I managed, as a dutiful daughter must.

      ‘But will you make a good wife? You should be perfect for my purposes. You’re pretty enough, your blood is Valois, you’re well formed and there’s nothing to suggest that you will not be fertile,’ she mused as my cheeks flushed. ‘It is unfortunate, of course, that he has refused you once.’

      ‘Who has refused me, maman?’

      ‘That blood-drenched butcher Henry.’

      I blinked, all attention. All shock.

      ‘Henry of England,’ Isabeau retorted, as if I were ignorant rather than astonished. ‘Your dowry wasn’t good enough, high enough, rich enough, for his august consideration.’

      This robbed me of all responses. The weight in my chest became a flutter of nerves. I had been offered to the King of England, my dowry negotiated and my hand rejected. All without my knowing.

      ‘The question is, can we change his mind?’ She released me with a snap of her fingers as if she might magic some solution from the cold room.

      I was free to step back, away. And did so, but found the words to ask, ‘Does he still consider me, if he has refused me once?’

      ‘He wants France,’ Isabeau responded willingly enough, as if pleased to have an audience, but the sneer in her voice put me in my place. ‘It wasn’t enough for him to drain our lifeblood at Agincourt. He wants France for himself and his heirs, by some ancient line of descent from his long-dead Valois ancestress Isabella, who wed an English king.’ She turned her stare back on me. ‘He offered to wed you but only on condition that you came with two million gold crowns sewn into your shift as your dower. Two million.’

      So much. My breath slammed into my throat. I could not imagine so many gold coins.

      ‘Am I worth so much, maman?’ It was beyond belief to me.

      ‘No. Of course you are not. We offered six hundred thousand crowns, and told the English King he was lucky to get as much, considering the state of our finances. So he demanded eight hundred thousand, and a trousseau, but no less. And that was the end of that. We haven’t got it, and the King is too witless to be able to don his own hose, much less debate a treaty.’

      ‘So he does not want me.’ My hopes, once soaring, now dipped like a summer swallow. ‘I will not be Queen of England.’

      ‘You might if we are able to remind him of your existence. So how do we remind your prince, ma petite?’ Her endearment might be tender but her tone was brittle mockery as she grasped my shoulders and forced me to face her. ‘Do we trail you onto a battlefield, so that he might catch a glimpse of your qualities as his sword cuts a vicious path through our French subjects? Or do we exhibit you at a siege, where he can peruse a possible bride on his right while he starves our people to death on his left?’ She released me abruptly.

      ‘Sometimes I see no way forward with such a man. But I must be persuasive. We need him. We need him in an alliance with Valois against those who would reduce France to civil war. And perhaps I see a way. We could send him a portrait, so that he can see your prized Valois features for himself, before his eye begins to stray elsewhere.’ Isabeau tapped a foot as her gaze once more rested thoughtfully on my face.

      Her words sank deep into my mind. If Henry of England looked elsewhere for a bride, what would become of me? The enclosing walls of Poissy loomed higher and colder. Marriage to even a hostile suitor, a man who had spilled French blood without compunction on the battlefield at Agincourt, would have something to recommend it, especially if he were a King and rich. And so I was brave—or desperate—enough to СКАЧАТЬ