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

hotter for war than for the bride-bed. You must wait for your bedding, my girl, until that lust's satisfied. And then—if you are the price of peace—why then you shall be paid. But not before. And not unwilling, neither, it would seem.”
    The charming princess all crowned with gold...
    Velvets sweeping the litter of the corridor, Isabeau heard the cold, sweet voice, the small tinkle of the lute.
    * * *
    Charles, King of France, spurred his horse, left his attendants behind. But they would follow, follow like dogs a hare, a rabbit, a rat. Follow, follow. Sweet Christ, if a man is not to be driven mad again, he must be alone, alone sometimes!
    He drove the spur deeper. The April wind, the beat of hooves stirring the dust, powdered his hair, his eyebrows, his beard, filled in the melancholy creases of his face. And yet he felt neither glad nor sad; but empty—empty as a shell. It was always so after a sickness.
    He had come to himself, suddenly, in the dark and filthy den; he had roared aloud for a tub of hot water, for soap, for towels, for clean clothes. He had had his valets whipped for their neglect of his sacred person. And now he was free again in the sweet April weather. It was good to be in the clean clear air after the stench of the cell. His mind recognized it; but his heart was empty of any joy, empty still.
    Now he was for the woods of Vincennes...the woods...
    In the emptiness of his heart, feeling began to stir; the thorn his son had planted there began to prick. It was when he had gone from the King's rooms cleansed and robed to find his wife that the boy had come from his own rooms and led him by the arm...little Charles, unbelievably the Dauphin...
    A tear welled, ran down the runnels of dust.
    Young Charles had taken him away from the Queen's room—the Queen was not in Paris. The Queen was at...Vincennes.
    There had been something odd about young Charles, something sly.
    “Well why not?” he had asked his son. In Paris the young leaves must be already dark with dust but in Vincennes the woods were fresh.
    Young Charles had reached up on tip-toe, whispering, whispering.
    For a moment he had not believed his ears. Isabeau was free with her loves but proud; too proud to stoop to a low lout! Charles had his own reasons for slandering his mother; but Charles, young as he was, was subtle. He would smear her, not with lies but with the truth.
    Why did his son hate his mother so? His son...? Was Charles truly his son? And Catherine, pretty Catherine? Was she, too, his brother's by-blow?
    For one hateful moment he was glad Burgundy had killed Orléans and left him to die like a dog in the gutter.
    He passed a thin hand over his forehead; already it was beginning to tremble.
    Fool, fool to torment himself so! Charles was Dauphin now and a bastard could never be that!
    Aware of some knot in his reasoning he tried to pick at it; was forced to leave it. Were they trying to drive him crazy between them, his son and his wife?
    Well, he was riding to Vincennes to find out. By God if she had betrayed him with a base paramour, to prison with her and there let her rot!
    He must know, he must; but not now, not now. In this moment he could not endure to know; he was too near his sickness. He turned his horse. When he met his attendants all a-gallop, he could have laughed at the fear in their faces; the fear that looked sidelong from their eyes.
    He rode, slow with fatigue. Thank God, for Paris at last! A man came riding through the Charenton gate, a young man riding, easy, riding gay. He did not give the King right of way; he nodded gay, as to any traveller and set spur to his horse.
    He did not so much as look at the King—the King whom he thought locked in the dark cell; but the King looked at him—the base fellow riding like a lover to the spring woods of Vincennes.
    * * *
    She sat rigid within the narrow chamber. In prison, Isabeau the Queen, for all the world to laugh at! The thought drove her frantic.
    It was as much