Free Crown in Candlelight by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

I shall say, but it’s too late. Supporting Violante, she walked between the bowing courtiers and faced her father. He smiled at her tremulously; his eyes were black-ringed and a vein flickered in his temple. She thought: once I pitied him, sorrowed for him. But now his barbarism has cast out all my compassion.
    ‘Madame,’ he said softly, ‘and my lady of Orléans. God be with you both.’
    He stretched out his hands, the fingernails grown long, for his daughter and sister-in-law to kiss. The Duchess Violante sank to her knees; the princess stood still.
    ‘Belle?’ said the King in a high voice. ‘Come, greet me. This is a sad day.’
    ‘Your day! Your doing!’ said Isabelle with great violence.
    ‘Madame?’ he said uncertainly.
    Dimly she heard herself begin a planned tirade that outgrew its intent and overwhelmed her, bringing the sweat on to her face and shaking her whole body. From somewhere outside she looked amazed at this crying, ranting self, then seeing, as through mist, the faces of the company, nervous and appalled, the small princess drawing closer to Michelle, the Dauphin forgetting to smile. And the King’s eyes ringed with deeper black in new pallor, his speechless immobility.
    Everyone still as stone except for Odette, who came with a quick fluttering step to stand beside King Charles.
    ‘You are my shame,’ Isabelle said on a harsh breath, and lapsed into the formal third person singular. ‘For my father has murdered his own brother. He has become as barbaric, as gross in villainy as … as the English! As vile as Henry Bolingbroke!’ And in that instant it was Bolingbroke whom she wildly confronted.
    ‘My daughter,’ said the King very faintly, ‘you are wrong. I am guiltless.’
    ‘Assassin!’ she cried. She drew Violante up, holding her in her arms. ‘See your handiwork! For God’s sake!’ Her voice wailed about the pillared Hall; it might have come from the carved mouths of the wild men. ‘Has Valois come to this? Butchering its own flesh in stealth by night? Louis of Orléans would have been my father on my marriage, so you have robbed me of two fathers. For from this day I count you none of mine!’
    She finished, almost fainting. Even Violante, her own sorrow momentarily eclipsed, was looking at her aghast, like the whole court. Then the King gave a groan. Forty pairs of eyes swivelled to the dais. He had sunk to the floor, his arms waving wildly. He had knocked off his diadem. It fell and rotated like a glittering coin. The King clutched at his head and Odette bent to him. Katherine crept nearer and laid a timid hand upon his neck.
    ‘Do not touch me! I shall shatter!’ He held out his taloned fingers. ‘Look!’ he cried into the frightened child’s face. ‘I am made of glass …’ Then he buried his head in the skirt of his mantle and rolled about against the steps of the dais.
    Doctors ran and milled about him as the dreadful silence began to break up into whispered oaths and little prayers.
    Odette left the King’s side. She came down to where Isabelle, horrified, stood staring at her father.
    ‘I trust you’re satisfied, Madame!’ She looked sadly back at the writhing figure. ‘I would have given my heart’s blood to spare him this. Orléans was of no account beside Charles of Valois, for whom I would gladly die. A hundred lives would be small price to keep him well. And now …’ For the first time in memory Isabelle saw tears in Odette’s eyes. ‘He will not recover easily from this storm. Why, Madame? Why did you do it? He had enough on his soul without false accusation! You should have saved your spleen for Jean sans Peur!’
    Isabelle covered her face with her hands, but Odette pulled them away.
    ‘Look, Madame! Look well! There’s the beginning of France’s ruin!’
    Haggardly Isabelle looked. The Dauphin Louis had picked up the fallen diadem, and was surveying it with a reckless infantile greed. And on the steps, unnoticed by the distraught