The Star of Lancaster - Plaidy Jean (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные TXT) 📗

'What then, my lady?*

'They are men with a knowledge of the stars ... they predict the future.*

'And on occasions arrange the future.*

*I do not understand what you mean, my lord.*

*It should be clear. You wish for some event to take place and ... these men arrange it.*

'How could that be! The future is in God*s hands.*

'But it can often be helped by certain methods.*

'You are talking in riddles.*

'Forgive me. Your confessor has told us much. He says that these two men at your command work with the powers of evil.*

'The man is a fool and a liar.'

'My lady, he is a Minorite Friar.'

'I would say he is a liar were he the Archbishop of Canter-

bury. He has always been of a jealous nature. He hated the friendship I showed for the astrologers/

*He says they were with you when the late King suffered from his illness/

*0h God help me/ murmured the Queen.

*My father's disease was a loathsome one. Many said it had witchcraft in it.'

'I was with your father. I nursed him. He loved me till the end.'

'That does not prove that you had no hand in illwishing him.'

'This is nonsense. What good has his death brought me? It was better for me when he lived. He would never have allowed me to be treated as I am being now.'

*If you were guilty of what some say you are, he would have wished you to answer for your sins.*

Joanna covered her face with her hands. *I loved the King/ she murmured. 'I nursed him through his sickness. He wanted me near him all the time.*

Bedford was silent.

'He suffered greatly/ she went on. 'Not only with the pain but the fearful disfigurement.'

'What was the disease W'hich overtook my father?' said Bedford. 'It was said at the time that it was brought on through evil influences.'

'That is a lie. Your father would have been the first to declare it so. He knew that I loved him, that I could tend him better than anyone.'

'So we thought then, Madam.'

'Of what else have you come here to accuse me?' she demanded.

'Of practising witchcraft, of working against the King.'

'Working against the King! How could I do that? He is my friend. He has always been my friend.'

'You did not show much friendship when you gave so niggardly to him in his need to pursue the war in France.'

'I gave what I had to give.'

'My father left you rich. You are said to be one of the richest women in the country.'

Now she saw it all. It was her money they sought. What a fool she had been not to have given the King what he wanted when he had come to see her. His brother was his lieutenant.

Extortion was their plan. She felt a faint relief. If it was her money they wanted, they might spare her life.

Of course they would. They dared not take that. Henry could not afford to offend the Duke of Brittany nor the royal House of France to that extent. To make war was one thing but to murder members of the family another.

*So you will believe the word of a treacherous priest against mine, my lord?' she asked.

'We shall investigate, of course. In the meantime I have decided to put you under guard.*

'Here in Havering?'

*No, you will go to Pevensey Castle. There Sir John Pelham will be your host.*

Tou mean my jailer?*

*He will take good care of you and treat you as your rank requires.*

'But I shall be his prisoner.*

'And if you are guilty, my lady, your goods will be confiscated to the crown.*

*Ah,* she said, *I understand. They will be of some help to the King in pursuing the war in France.'

Bedford was silent.

She was resigned. She knew her stepsons. They could make themselves believe that they were acting justly and all they cared about really was bringing money into the exchequer. She should have know^n better.

'There is one request I have to make,* she said. 'My son Arthur is in Fotheringay. He is Henry's prisoner as I shall be. Could we share our imprisonment?'

Bedford looked horrified.

She saw the thoughts chasing each other through his mind. Two of them in one castle! What plots they might fabricate.

'You will go to Pevensey,' he said stonily. 'And now, my lady, you will wish to prepare. You leave tomorrow.'

He bowed and feft her. She looked about her. Soon this place where she had lived during her widowhood would be a memory. She thought then of Colles and Brocart. Perhaps they should try to escape to France. Would it be wiser for them to go or stay? If they were caught something might be proved against them, innocent as they were. Yet if they fled that would be taken as an assumption of their guilt. She must warn them and leave them to make the decision.

The next day she left for Pevensey. When she was arriving at the castle she was treated by Sir John Pelham with the respect due to her rank, so she could not therefore complain of her reception.

If only she could have been with Arthur at Fotheringay she would have been almost content for it soon became clear that no case was to be brought against her. Colles and Brocart had not been questioned even. But her wealth had been confiscated.

Bedford had achieved his purpose. Her immense fortune was now in the hands of the King.

She would remain his prisoner, awaiting his pleasure.

KATHERINE DE VALOIS

Katherine de Valois, Princess of France, was wondering what her fate was to be. Would she indeed be the bride of the King of England? It had seemed so once, but now she was not so sure. Nothing had ever been very sure in her life.

Her seventeen years had been turbulent ones. Sometimes she wondered how she had lived through them. Her father was mad—not all the time, it was true, but no one could be sure when he would lapse into that dismal state. Her mother was a schemer—a Jezebel they called her and perhaps not without cause. She had dominated Katherine's childhood and the little girl had been terrified of her while she was filled with great depth of feeling—an admiration for her flamboyant beauty, an awe of her vitality, and a realization of her power which at times seemed evil. The Queen was like a goddess who ruled the lives of her children—sometimes malignant, sometimes benign and to whom they must offer complete submission.

Isabeau of Bavaria was reckoned to be the most beautiful woman in France and as she was married to a man who, even though he was the King, was now and then little more than an imbecile, perhaps it was not surprising that she, forceful woman that she was, should take over the reins of government and try to rule France.

Katherine could only rejoice in her passing out of childhood. At least now she was able to understand what was happening around her and practise some self preservation. There had been wretched days when she was very young and she and her brothers and sisters had never known from one day to the next what was going to happen to them. They had longed for the days when their father came out of what he called 'his darkness'. He was kind and affectionate and when he had emerged from that darkness everything would change miraculously. But they soon began to realize that they could never be sure when the shadows were going to claim him again.

She had been very young when Uncle Louis of Orleans was murdered in the streets of Paris, but she had been aware that some terrible disaster had occurred. At the time she and her brothers and sisters had been in the Palace of St Pol where they had not had enough to eat. She had not understood at the time why life had changed so suddenly. From luxury to this abject poverty had seemed to her just the normal way of life. Later of course she knew that her father was in one of his lost periods and that her mother and Uncle Louis of Orleans were lovers and ruled the kingdom, for her mother had persuaded the King that his brother should be Regent during his lapses. With her sisters and Louis the Dauphin and the two younger brothers she had lived as best she could with the help of one or two lower servants. The others had all left because their wages had not been paid.