A Lady Crowned with Fleurs-de-Lys by Amelia Rogers

Author:Amelia Rogers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2014-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

Valentina Must Leave The Court

The wizard was scared. His hope of curing the King permanently was getting weaker and the Queen was growing impatient. He knew that if he failed in his task he would be thrown out and other sorcerers, magicians, quacks, would take his place. Arnaud Guillaume could not allow that.

He was growing old, and increasingly fond of his life at court, where an apartment in the Palace was at his disposal and heavy bags of gold came his way any time a filter he concocted brought a lover to the bed of a love-sick lady, or a pin he speared through the heart of a wax image rid a man of a wealthy relative that took too long dying.

The Queen was the most generous of his clients, but she could be very unpleasant when her wishes were thwarted. Arnaud was aware of this, and felt relieved that at last he had come up with a plan that would buy him some time.

A little satisfied grin was on his face as he hurried towards the Queen’s rooms, and for the occasion he had donned his most elegant robe of gray velvet, and a bejeweled black hat.

Little Isabelle, the Queen’s daughter, was with her mother when Arnaud Guillaume was announced. The young princess had been sobbing desperately, clinging to her mother, one hand holding her favorite rag doll.

“But I do not want to leave you and Father, and my brother and sisters,” she whined.

The Queen smiled at her but her eyes were ebbing with tears too and her voice trembled when she comforted her daughter. “My little Isabelle, imagine, you will be a very great lady, the Queen of a beautiful country and the beloved wife of a handsome prince.”

Isabelle had never met Richard, King of England, but she had seen a portrait of him. The young monarch looked handsome and resplendent in his court costume, with yellow curly hair framed by the massive crown, symbol of his power, delicate long fingers holding the gold scepter and globe, a slender figure draped in the folds of a sumptuous red mantle lined with ermine.

Looking at those perfect features, the dark serious eyes, the smiling mouth Isabelle noticed how similar Richard was to the hand­some prince she herself had married and how different from the young, princess that was to be his second bride, her plump, dark-haired Isabelle.

Her daughter was only seven, and so much like Isabelle in appearance and temperament that sometimes it was like looking at a living por­trait of herself as a child. The Queen loved having Isabelle magnifi­cently dressed, and often her cutters and seamstresses would make their dresses from the same piece of material and embroider them with the same pearls and precious stones. Red, scarlet, purple were the colors that enhanced the little princess’s skin and eyes the most, turquoises and sapphires, Isabelle’s favorite stones, adorned the countless chaplets, belts, pendants her mother had given her.

“But, Mother, the English are bad people, you know that.

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