Виктория Холт: Madame Serpent

The interview was over. She bowed and left a faintly regretful King who continued to think of her after she had gone.

Young Henry lay in one of the enclosed gardens watching clouds chase one another across the summer sky. He felt safe here. If he heard anyone coming he would get up quickly and run away. He wanted to be alone; he always wanted to be alone.

He would rather be at Amboise than in Paris. He hated Les Tournelles, that old palace near the Bastille, since for Henry it was overshadowed by the prison and therefore a constant reminder of his dark childhood days. His father would not live in the Louvre; it was too dark and gloomy and old-fashioned; he had grand schemes for altering it. There were always grand schemes for altering buildings. He was building Fontainebleau, and that would be really beautiful; but there was no peace to be had there. His father was always discussing what should be done and who should do it; and showing how clever he was, while everyone worshipped him because he was the King.

Henry hated the brilliant man who was his father; and the hatred went deeper because, if Henry could have chosen to be like anyone on Earth, he would instantly have selected the King of France, his father.

How he talked! How did he think of all those clever things to say? How did he know as much as he did and still have time to hunt and write and sing and go to bed with women? Henry did not understand it. He only knew that this dazzling man was a cheat and a liar, and that the most wretched time that he, Henry, and his brother Francis the Dauphin had ever spent, had been brought about by their father.

They were to have gone to Spain― oh, only for a little while, they had been told. They were to be hostages because their father had been beaten in battle by the King of Spain and had had to promise to marry the King of Spain’s sister Eleonora, and to do many other things besides. And to make sure that these things were done, the little Princes must take their father’s place as prisoners in Spain. Only for a little while! But as soon as their father was free, he had forgotten his promises, forgotten his sons.

They had crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, and for four years they had remained in that hateful land― prisoners of their father’s enemy.

Young Henry pulled up a blade of grass and bit it angrily. His eyes clouded with tears. He had hated it. At first it not been so bad, for Eleonora had looked after them; she had loved and told them she was to be their new mother. How kind she had been, determined on making them good Catholics, wanting them to love her as if they were truly her own boys.

But then the King of Spain had begun to understand the King of France was a liar; and the two little boys were taken from the kindly lady who was to be their stepmother and put in charge of low ruffians who jeered at them because their father was a cheat.

Henry was deeply humiliated and his brother Francis was sick often; Henry suffered terribly,. wondering if his brother was going to die and he be left all alone in Spain.

Their clothes, as they grew out of them, had been replaced by shabby, dusty velvet. ‘Look at the little Princes!’ the guards had jeered. ‘Sons of the lying King of France!’ And in Spanish too! Nor would they answer a single question unless the boys asked it in Spanish. Henry never learned quickly, but he did pick up Spanish. He had to. And that was one of the things which made his father despise him so utterly. When he came home, he had forgotten his native French.

How overjoyed he and Francis had been to know they were going home at last. Home― after four years! Henry had been five when he left France; he was nine when he returned. He had thought life was going to be wonderful then. But the big dazzling man in jewel-studded clothes, whom everyone adored, and who made everyone laugh and be happy to be near him looked in dismay at his two sons, said something to them which Henry did not understand at all and Francis not fully; and then he had called them sober Spanish dons. Everyone had laughed.

Henry hated laughter. He himself never laughed; but his tragedy was that he wanted to.

It was easier for young Francis. After all, he was Dauphin, and people tried to please him because he would one day be the King. Young, morose Henry, they left to himself. His father shrugged his shoulders and hardly looked his way. Henry had no friends at all.

And as he lay on the grass absorbed in his miseries, someone came into the garden. It was a lady dressed in black and white. He scrambled to his feet. He hated her because he had to bow to her, and he could never manage the bow.

People laughed at the way he did it― not the French way, not the graceful way!

Clumsy, Spanish, oafish― more like a peasant than a Duke!

She smiled and he realized that she was beautiful. It was a true smile, he saw at once; it seemed to imply friendship, not superior contempt. But on second thoughts he could not believe that, and he was suspicious.

‘I hope you will forgive my intrusion into your privacy,’ she said.

‘I― I will go and leave the garden to you.’

‘Oh, please do not.’

He was moving away from her; if he could reach the opening in the hedge, he would run.

‘Please sit down,’ she begged. ‘Just as you were― on the grass. Otherwise I shall be convinced that I have driven you away, and that will make me very unhappy. You would not wish to make me unhappy, would you?’

‘I― I― cannot see that my presence here―’

‘I will explain. I saw you from the palace. I said to myself: Ah! There is Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans , whose advice I wish to ask. Now is my opportunity!’

The hot blood rushed into his face. ‘My advice?’ he said.

She sat on the grass beside him, surely an undignified thing for a great lady to do. I want to buy some horses, and I know that your knowledge concerning them is great. Would you, I was wondering, be kind enough to give me a little advice.’

He was staring at her, still suspicious, but his heart had begun to pound. He felt ecstatically happy one moment, suspicious the next. Was she taunting him, teasing him? Was she going to show him shortly that he did not know anything about the one subject he really believed he understood?

‘I am sure that you could find― people to― to,’ He was preparing to rise to his feet. He would make some attempt to bow and dash out of the gardens.

But she had laid a hand on his sleeve. ‘I could find people talk and look wise, I doubt not; but what I want is someone whose judgment I can trust.’

His mouth grew sullen; she was making fun of him.

She went on quickly: ‘I have watched you come riding in from the chase. I saw you on a chestnut mare― a lovely animal.’

His mouth turned up at the corners very slightly. Nobody could make fun of his mare, for she was perfect.

‘I should like to have a mare like that, if, of course it is possible to get one. I doubt if I could match her perfections.’

‘It would be difficult,’ he said; and he began to speak, out a stammer, of the delightful animal― of her age, exploits, of her habits.

The lady listened entranced. He had never had such conversation with anyone before, but as soon as he realize much he was talking, he became tongue-tied again and longed to escape.

‘Do tell me more,’ she said. ‘I see I was wise when I decided to ask your help.’

So he found himself telling her of the merits of others of his horses.

In turn, she told him of her home, the château of Anet in the lovely valley of the Eure, and of the forests which surrounded it. It was wonderful hunting country; but there again, she said, she felt that a little of the right sort of knowledge would make it even better. There was so much that should be done.