Free Wife to Henry V: A Novel by Hilda Lewis

as she could do not to beat upon the door, to scream her insults upon the mad fool who had put her there, and upon her unnatural son. But most of all she wanted to shout her insults to the thrice-damned fool riding by, careless of the King. Well, he had paid for that! He was dead; the fine young body that hers knew so well, twisted by torture, fed to the fish in the dark Seine water. But he had not paid enough, not nearly enough, the fool whose low breeding had brought her within prison walls. A gentleman may cuckold the King but he must never abate one jot of deference—a man of breeding would have known it.
    She rose, wandered about the small room, set the blood flowing again in the long, cramped limbs.
    But even then she had not taken her madman seriously at first. He had known for years how she consoled herself—his own bed was far from virtuous. She hadn't known, then, that her son was at the bottom of it...young Charles she had taken for a fool. Had she, perhaps, been mistaken? Could it be that Charles was both dire and subtle? A pity she had not considered that before! For when she had been banished to Blois she had laughed in her mad fool's face. He could not do without her!
    A pity she had laughed. For now she found herself in Tours—imprisoned. And it was her husband who consoled himself—his latest mistress already pregnant. Well, let him console himself with all the ladies of Paris—he had lust enough for all his sickness. Had he controlled his lusts in youth he would not be the sick fool he was now!
    She paced restless, hands tight-locked.
    Charles her husband and Charles her son, dallying with love, taking their pleasure, both of them, while Henry of England hammered at the door. And she, she the only one to drive him back, fast-shut in prison-walls! This was no time for private angers; that time would come; but not now, not now...
    She came back to her chair, sat there, willing her mind to its work.
    Armagnac or Burgundy? One or the other she must take for her ally.
    But which, which?
    Burgundy was her enemy. Armagnac had been her friend—her more than friend; and yet he had betrayed her. Without his nod young Charles would never have dared to show his teeth.
    Her mind, taking her over the same old ground, found a new point, seized upon it.
    Old enmities may be, if not forgotten, forgiven; but sweet friendships once betrayed—never.
    Burgundy then. Burgundy.
CHAPTER VII
    The charming princess all crowned with gold... Catherine pushed her lute away with a pettish hand. The English crown was as far away as ever, to say nothing of the crown of France. And she was bored with the summer woods of Vincennes. Yet here she must stay by command of her brother, that same young Charles she had bullied and laughed at not so long ago. She was not to be risked in Paris, he said; the air was pestilent with rotten corpses.
    A precious pawn and she knew it; but a pawn upon the losing-side—the Queen taken, the King constantly checked by madness.
    The Queen taken. She felt lonely, abandoned, missing her mother's sharp tongue, the acid wit, the raw humour, the grim courage. She could not be shocked by Isabeau's easy loves; who was there more virtuous? Not her father—there was always a woman in his bed. Louis had been a byword for wenching; and Charles, young as he was, his virtue was already spotted. As for Burgundy they said of him that a woman would be his death; and his son, Michelle's precious husband; though he had given his wife no children, he had fathered half-a-dozen brats already. So why turn upon her mother who had the best excuse of them all?
    Because they feared her; feared that quick, unscrupulous brain. France shall be lost by a woman and won again by a woman. It was an old prophecy. The Queen was the first woman—so her enemies said. But, if France lost was England's gain, why then she herself might be the second...duty chiming with pleasure; and she, Catherine, the Saviour of France.
    But meanwhile,