The Reluctant Queen Read Free Page B

problems.
    If Margot failed in this mission, she’d brought along Charlotte de Sauves, who had once entranced Navarre and could likely do so again. The Queen Mother never travelled anywhere without her bevy of beautiful women from her flying squadron, her Escadron Volant . Under Catherine’s careful instructions de Sauves had seduced both Margot’s husband and her brother, the Duke of Alençon, in an attempt to set one against the other, as well as cause friction between man and wife. There’d been a certain amount of conflict created yet the ruse had sadly failed to effectively divide this dangerous triumvirate.
    Shrewd and clever as she was where politics were concerned, human nature had ever been a mystery to Catherine de Medici.
    But if Henry had tired of de Sauves then Catherine had others in her squadron, including a young Cyprian beauty, Victoria de Ayala, known as Dayelle, who would be sure to enchant him. Of Greek birth, she had escaped from Cyprus in 1570 when the island had been taken by the Turks. Catherine’s late son Charles IX had saved the girl and her brother by paying for them to come to France; the boy entering the service of the Duke d’Alençon, and the girl joining Catherine’s Escadron Volant . One or other of these delectable ladies would help her to persuade her son-in-law to sign the peace agreement she so badly needed.
    Catherine de Medici was a woman used to getting her own way, and with her own particular methods of ensuring that she got it. It amused her that rumours were bruited abroad that she had even disposed of her son-in-law’s own mother, Jeanne d’Albret, with the aid of a pair of poisoned gloves. True or not, those who had dared to seriously challenge her, such as Coligny the Huguenot leader, Lignerolles, who had done much harm to her favourite son’s health with his ascetic practices, and others, had not lived to tell the tale.
     
    Henry of Navarre was secretly most eager to see his wife again. Despite their squabbles and their differences, Margot held a fascination for him which he found hard to resist. Not simply because of her beauty but also for her fire, her spirit, her sense of adventure and her joie de vivre . He could not deny that she was warm and spontaneous, generous and loving. There was some magnetism about her, some indefinable charisma. It did not surprise him that she was the darling of the court, and it was perhaps a pity that he could not seem to love her as a husband should. Nevertheless, such sentiment was not essential in a royal marriage, and he still found her extremely attractive and was more than ready to welcome her back to his bed.
    He suspected the people of Béarn, however, may have a different view of their new queen, certainly the more narrow minded Puritans amongst them. Some already spoke of Margot as the Papist Temptress, or the Whore of Babylon.
    But then they were not any more trusting of him, their king, since he had been obliged to turn Catholic in order to save his own skin. He’d reiterated his devotion to the Protestant faith of his upbringing on his return, in order to regain his kingdom, yet the people lacked confidence in his loyalty. It perhaps did not help that at his own court here in Béarn he employed adherents to both faiths among his staff. He saw that as enlightened. What was so wrong in tolerating the religious beliefs of others, of allowing people to worship God in whatever way they chose? Others, sadly, took a different view.
    In reality neither side trusted him. The Catholics were his enemies, and the Huguenots lived in constant fear of a new massacre. Thankfully, he still had the support of Condé, who was in the north, Turenne, always by his side, and Damville, whose skills as a soldier were beyond question.
    Catherine had asked him to meet them at Bordeaux, but he had wisely declined. Henry of Navarre refused to venture far from his own lands, where he felt safe, and many Catholic towns naturally refused to grant him