The Reluctant Queen Read Online Free PDF

bed.
    But when he had left her in the early hours, she called her maid and had the sheets changed, and the room sprayed with perfume. She would be his wife and queen, but dear God there was a limit to even her tolerance.
     
    It had finally been decided that the peace talks should take place in Nérac, being a   Huguenot stronghold, which were finally achieved in February 1579. And taking almost a month to persuade the Puritan pastors to come to any sort of agreement. They bitterly contested every offer Catherine made, always demanding more. She likened them to birds of prey in their sober black garb, calling them les oiseaux nuisantes , the nighthawks.
    She aped their speech, practising it with her ladies at her coucher to gales of laughter, trying out these newly learnt biblical phrases on the Protestants, although with little appreciation.
    They in turn marvelled at her energy as she was always the first to reach the council table, following an early Mass, and spent every spare moment writing letters to her son, Henri Trois, and to her dear friend Madame d’Uzès, who by now had returned to the French Court. Catherine was frequently heard to complain of missing her son who rarely responded to her letters. She would beg the Duchess to give her all the gossip from court, and tell her what her beloved Henri was doing.
    Spring had come and the air was filled with the scent of almond and cherry blossom, and the Queen Mother was anxious to be on her way. Having done all she could in Nérac and the South, and, despite all the problems and difficulties of her constant journeying back and forth, Catherine believed she had managed to establish some sort of peace in Languedoc, Guyenne, Provence and the Dauphiné. Now she wished only to say her farewells and return to Paris.
    The King and Queen of Navarre offered to accompany her to Castelnaudary, and once again she called little Dayelle to her.
    ‘What progress have you made, child, is the King besotted?
    ‘I – I know not, Your Majesty. He seems very fond.’
    Catherine grabbed the terrified girl by the arm and gave her a little shake. ‘But is he fond enough? Have you told him that the time draws near for you to depart? That he will lose you if he does not accompany us to Paris?’
    The young Cypriot was utterly tongue-tied. She dare not explain to this great queen how the King her lover had laughed when she’d suggested such a thing.
    ‘I almost left my head behind the last time I was foolish enough to visit the capital. Much as I love you, my dear Dayelle, I love my head more.’
    ‘I will speak to him again,’ she promised the Queen Mother, and sent up a silent prayer that when yet again she failed, Catherine would not seek retribution against her.
    The farewells were duly made, the Queen Mother’s entourage departed, and Dayelle went with it. Henry of Navarre and his queen, who was no more anxious to return to Paris than he, stayed safely behind in Béarn, and much as he missed the charming Cypriot, Henry soon sought consolation elsewhere.
     
    After parting from Catherine at Castelnaudary, Navarre and Margot travelled on to Pau. At first she was enchanted, thinking the Palace there quite beautiful and with breathtaking views of the Pyrenees. Henry showed her the bedchamber of his mother, Jeanne d’Albret, where he had been born; the tortue de mer , the turtle shell which had apparently served him as a cradle, and all around the room were the portraits and artefacts of his ancestors the Kings of Navarre. There were beautiful gardens too, and Margot thought she might be happy here.
    But she had reckoned without the bigotry of the Calvinists.
    Navarre’s tolerance in religious matters meant that he was perfectly willing to allow his wife, and a few of her closest friends, to hear Mass in the Palace chapel. It was quite small, only able to accommodate little more than a dozen people.
    The Palace drawbridge was always pulled up beforehand, but somehow the people of the